Russian investment group Sistema yesterday approved an agreement with local telecoms holding group Svyazinvest to swap shares in MGTS, the Moscow City Telephone Network for shares in Russian wireless operator, SkyLink. Shareholders approved the move in…
Russian investment group Sistema yesterday approved an agreement with local telecoms holding group Svyazinvest to swap shares in MGTS, the Moscow City Telephone Network for shares in Russian wireless operator, SkyLink. Shareholders approved the move in an EGM.
Under the share swap agreement, Svyazinvest will transfer to Sistema-Inventure 28% of ordinary shares in MGTS (23.3% of the share capital of MGTS) in exchange for Sistema-Inventure’s 50% stake in SkyLink, which combined with the indirect ownership of the remaining 50% by SkyLink, effectively totals 100% of SkyLink’s share capital.
Sistema-Inventure will also make an additional cash payment of RUB450m to cover the difference in value of MGTS and SkyLink shares. The rights and obligations of the parties under the share swap agreement will become enforceable following the execution of a number of pending conditions.
The agreement follows an MofU signed between Comstar-UTS, Sistema and Svyazinvest in November of last year.
Last month Comstar, Russia’s main telecom operator had agreed to sell its 25%+1 share stake in Svyazinvest for Rbs26bn (E686m) and use the proceeds to pay down its debt to Sberbank.
The swap would allow Svyazinvest to hold 100% of the share capital of SkyLink and Sistema, Comstar’s parent company would acquire 23.33% of MGTS. Comstar already held 69.93% of MGTS, which would take the combined holding of Sistema to 93.26% of MGTS.
The Russian government is backing the reorganisation of Svyazinvest, which will see the telecoms holding company’s regional subsidiaries merged into Russia’s long-distance telecom operator, Rostelecom. Svyazinvest holds 38% of Rostelecom and has agreed to buy Development Bank’s 10% stake in the company for at least Rbs230 (E6) per share by 2013.
