PRESS: Rostelecom seen aimed to get 100% control in Tele2

MOSCOW, Jan 24 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Rostelecom could become the sole owner of mobile operator T2 RTK Holding, working under the Tele2 brand, in which the state-controlled telecom already owns 45%, and the deal has been agreed upon with the mobile operator’s minority holders, business daily Vedomosti reported on Thursday, citing sources.

T2 RTK Holding is valued at 240 billion rubles for the deal with Rostelecom, several sources told the daily. One of them specified that Rostelecom could raise its stake in the mobile operator to a controlling one instead of 100%.

BCS analyst Maria Sukhanova and Raiffeisenbank analyst Sergei Libin estimated T2 RTK Holding’s value at 200 billion rubles with debts included.

An unnamed federal official said the Federal State Property Management Agency had prepared a directive allowing Rostelecom to raise its interest in T2 RTK Holding to 100%. An authority spokesperson said that Rostelecom did not apply to the agency for permission.

The Digital Development Ministry has not received such a directive yet, and the Federal Antimonopoly Service has not got any application for the deal.

A source familiar with parameters of the deal said that Rostelecom is going to pay for 55% in the mobile operator with quasi-treasury shares and money. At present, Rostelecom’s subsidiary Mobitel owns 12.01% of the parent company’s capital, and this stake cost some 23.6 billion rubles on the market on Wednesday.

The remaining 55% in T2 RTK Holding belong to Tele2 Russia Holding AB, in which VTB has 50%, Alexei Mordashov’s Invintel B.V. has 40%, and Yury Kovalchuk’s Bank Rossiya has 10%.

(66.3318 rubles – U.S. $1)

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