International operator VimpelCom is to exit the Vietnamese mobile market, selling its 49 per cent share of fifth placed mobile operator Gtel Mobile for $45m. VimpelCom, which is headquartered in The Netherlands, said the stake would be bought by GTEL Transmit and Infrastructure, “a related party” of Vimpelcom’s local partner, Gtel.
The legal drama involving Nordic operator Telenor continued in Russia this week with authorities disputing the VimpelCom shares it purchased earlier this year.
Nordic operator group Telenor has been busy handling legal disputes this week, demanding compensation from Indian partner Unitech following the cancellation of its 2G spectrum licences and filing separate lawsuits against Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei in Pakistan. The firm also announced that it is withdrawing all its longstanding legal wranglings against Altimo Holdings & Investments.
Russian carrier VimpelCom said Monday it has agreed to sell a majority stake in its lucrative Algerian unit, Djezzy, to the Algerian state for an undisclosed sum.
The chief executive of second placed Russian carrier VimpelCom, Alexander Izosimov, is to step down at the end of June. Izosimov will be leaving on a high, having engineered the somewhat controversial merger with Orascom Telecom parent Weather, which created the world’s fifth largest mobile carrier.
Russian mobile phone retailer, Euroset, which claims to sell three out of every ten phones in Russia, is to launch on the London Stock Exchange. The fundraising target is said to be in excess of £620m, putting a value of between £1.8bn and £3.1bn on the company, which operates over 4300 shops in Russia.
Shareholders in Russian operator VimpelCom have voted in favour of a $6bn merger with Wind Telecom SpA. Despite strong opposition from major shareholder Telenor, more than 53 per cent of voters supported a deal that will see the creation of the world’s 5th-largest mobile company by subscriber base.
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Operator Telenor and VimpelCom are still slugging it out over the Russian player’s proposed acquisition of Wind Telecom, part of Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris’ Weather Investments vehicle and owner of Orascom.
Norway-based Telenor has written to Russian carrier VimpelCom, in which it holds a 39.6 per cent stake, voicing its opposition to VimpelCom’s proposed merger with Weather Investments, which owns Orascom. In the statement, Telenor spokesman Dag Melgaard said: “We strongly support VimpelCom’s expansion in accordance with the principles agreed at the time the company was created.” But, he added: “In our capacity as a shareholder of Vimpelcom Ltd, we do not believe this transaction makes strategic of financial sense for VimpelCom’s shareholders.”
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Operator Russian carrier VimpelCom has announced that the Ukrainian Anti-Monopoly Committee has confirmed its approval of the transaction to combine VimpelCom and Ukraine’s leading operator Kyivstar. This permits VimpelCom to integrate its operations in Ukraine, combining its 100 per cent owned local subsidiary, Ukrainian RadioSystems with Kyivstar. According to Informa data, Kyivstar currently claims 43.4 per cent of the Ukrainian market.
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