The merger of TeliaSonera and Alfa Group’s stakes in Russian mobile operator MegaFon is in jeopardy after Telecominvest launched legal proceedings to stop the transaction.
Telecominvest, which is owned by Russian tycoon Alsher Usmanov, holds a 31.1%…
The merger of TeliaSonera and Alfa Group’s stakes in Russian mobile operator MegaFon is in jeopardy after Telecominvest launched legal proceedings to stop the transaction.
Telecominvest, which is owned by Russian tycoon Alsher Usmanov, holds a 31.1% stake in MegaFon. It filed a court case on April 6 on the grounds that Russian law forbids state-owned foreign investrs from controlling a strategic Russian company such as MegaFon.
Last November, TeliaSonera and Alfa Group’s Altimo agreed to merge their shareholdings in Turkish mobile operator Turkcell and MegaFon into a new entity. Altimo, which is controlled by Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman, holds a 25.1% stake in MegaFon and a 4.99% stake in Turkcell. TeliaSonera holds a 43.8% stake in MegaFon and a 37.3% stake in Turkcell.
