PRESS: RDIF, Mubadala to leave digital divide bridging project

MOSCOW, Dec 9 (PRIME) -- The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the United Arab Emirates’ investment company Mubadala will retreat by the end of 2019 from Russia’s digital divide bridging project after providing 20 billion rubles to state-controlled operator Rostelecom, business daily Kommersant reported on Monday citing a source familiar with the situation.

RDIF and Mubadala’s partner Rostelecom will acquire their project company with the rest of a loan given with money from the National Wealth Fund, a Rostelecom spokesperson told the daily.

A RDIF spokesperson said the consortium of investors “is studying an option of withdrawal from the project upon expiration of a five-year horizon of investment, which has been stipulated in the project’s documents since the very beginning.”

The retreat is planned to be completed by the end of February 2020, and the investors are satisfied with the project’s yield.

The source said the average annual yield was at about 18% in rubles.

RDIF and Mubadala provided Rostelecom with some 10 billion rubles for equipping remote areas with the Internet by 2024, and the program was launched in 2014.

According to experts, as infrastructure is built, Rostelecom will need to invest from 2 billion to 8 billion rubles annually in the project.

(63.7185 rubles – U.S. $1)

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