INTERVIEW: CEO says Tele2 to publish 2017 IFRS report on March 6

BARCELONA, Mar 2 (PRIME) -- Russian mobile operator T2 RTK Holding, working under the Tele2 brand, will resume disclosure of financial results on March 6 with a release of its International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for 2017 although the report will be incomplete, General Director Sergei Emdin told PRIME on Friday.

“We are not going to speak about our regional specifics since they still vary. And we don’t want to provoke competitors to make targeted responses in a region. On the scale of the whole country, we’ll meet expectations of reporters and analysts fully,” Emdin said.

T2 RTK Holding’s shareholders comprise state-controlled telecom operator Rostelecom with 45% and a consortium of VTB Bank, Bank Rossiya, insurance group Sogaz, and businessman Alexei Mordashov with 55%.

“We’ve approved a new strategy at the end of 2016. Last year was a year of tests in many aspects. This year we’re certain of what we do. We clearly see our strategic choice. In principle, we can show information, if not completely, but a significant part of it,” the executive said.

T2 RTK Holding suspended disclosing financial results in November 2016, explaining the move by a severe and concentrated reaction of competitors.

The mobile operator will raise its capital expenditures in 2018 and will start entering new regions in 2019, Emdin said.

“Expansion is more likely a matter of 2019. This year we’ll get ready and enter (new regions) next year. Capital expenditures will be truly much higher than last year. We don’t disclose details,” the top executive said.

“Last year we had time to consolidate, have a very attentive look at what and how we invest. This year, taking into consideration the fact that the economic situation in the society has improved strongly, we put many investment projects back on the agenda.”

The mobile operator hopes that consumption of its services will get a boost from lower tariffs for trips to Crimea and Sevastopol, which were cut from February 15 as the company complied with the antitrust service’s policy aimed at abolishing national roaming.

Emdin said the operator has cancelled intra-network roaming almost everywhere. The antitrust service gave time to the operator to cancel it until the end of May. “We have time until May, I think, we’ll abolish everything on time,” he said.

T2 RTK Holding still plans to sell its towers, but has not received any interesting offers so far.

“The topic was hot at the end of 2016: there were many companies interested in this infrastructure, offers were made. I may say there was a lull in 2017, which still continues. I mean we have not received any interesting proposals,” Emdin said.

The number of subscribers of the mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), launched on T2 RTK Holding’s network, has exceeded 1 million. “This year I hope we’ll have new clients, new MVNOs,” he said.

“The most important thing is that we’ll move from the creation of full MVNOs to mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE) projects, when almost any company, even a small one, which has nothing to do with telecommunications, can play the game. At that we’ll ensure all infrastructure stories for this company: they won’t have to deal with the state, or purchase the switch boards, or dip into technologies providing telecommunication services,” Emdin said.

T2 RTK Holding now shares its network with more than 15 virtual operators of such partners as Rostelecom, Sberbank, Tinkoff Bank, and others.

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