Teliasonera, Altimo Agree To Join Their Ownership Interests In Turkcell And Megafon
ISTANBUL - TeliaSonera and Altimo have agreed to combine their ownership interests in Turkcell and MegaFon into a new company in a bid to resolve ongoing legal disputes between each of them and with Turkcell, Turkey's leading GSM operator, Sonera said in a statement on Thursday.
The new company will be established in a western jurisdiction and listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
The ownership of Turkcell has been subject to several legal disputes since the former controlling shareholder, Cukurova, effectively sold the same shareholding interest twice, first to TeliaSonera and then to Altimo, the statement said.
Once established, the new company will own a majority of the shares in both Turkcell and MegaFon, the third largest GSM provider in Russia. AF Telecom, the third major shareholder in MegaFon, is also invited to join the partnership.
In order to avoid potential future conflicts, the parties have agreed that Altimo will support that TeliaSonera, being the controlling shareholder of Fintur Holdings with a right of first refusal in respect of any sale of the Fintur Holdings shares, acquires 100 percent of Fintur Holdings by buying Turkcell;s shares in the company at fair market value, it said.
TeliaSonera AB is the dominant telephone company and mobile network operator in Sweden and Finland, and is also active in other countries in Northern, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Spain, with a total of 106 million mobile customers in 2007.
Altimo specializes in telecom investments in Russia, the CIS and Asia. Its investee companies have more than 160 million mobile phone subscribers.
Fintur Holdings is a joint venture between TeliaSonera and Turkcell, in which TeliaSonera owns 58.55 percent and Turkcell 41.45 percent. Fintur is the major shareholder of leading mobile operations in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova.
