Sonera may abandon Turkcell
Posted by meb at February 16th, 2007
Scandinavia’s leading telecom operator TeliaSonera is planning to take over control in its partnerships with Russian Megafon and Turkcell, said company CEO Anders Igel on Tuesday. target is to take control of our partnerships in Turkey and Russia. If we are not the dominant partner, I don’t see any reason why we should continue our investments,” said Igel.
Igel said that the company is not looking to make a spontaneous decision. “If in the long term we cannot establish a growth platform different than the current one, then it is not logical to remain a minority partner,” he said. “But that does not mean we will leave in the near future.”
TeliaSonera owns 43.9 percent of the Russian cell phone operating company Megafon and 37 percent of Turkey’s leading GSM operator, Turkcell.
TeliaSonera won the arbitration lawsuit it brought against Çukurova Holding last month. An arbitration tribunal announced that Çukurova holding has to sell its shares in Turkcell to TeliaSonera for $3.1 billion.
If the sale goes through then TeliaSonera’s 37.1 percent shares in Turkcell will increase to 64.3 percent.
TeliaSonera on March 2005 had signed an agreement with Çukurova Holding, which was in debt then, to buy Çukurova’s 53 percent shares in Turkcell. But then Çukurova Holding decided to cancel that agreement and sign a contract with the Russian Alpha Group for a $3.3 billion funding package, which then provided the company with a chance to keep more Turkcell shares. Through that contract the Alpha Group indirectly acquired 13.22 percent of Turkcell.
Meanwhile yesterday, the Russian business daily Vedomosti wrote that the telecommunications group Altimo, owned by the Russian Alfa Group, was negotiating with Scandinavian telecommunications company TeliaSonera for exchanges of shares and that a deal was near. Vedomosti reported that two sources close to the negotiations claimed Altimo was offering to exchange its Russian mobile phone group MegaFon and Turkcell shares with TeliaSonera’s minority shares.
source: Referans
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