The CEO of VimpelCom’s (NASDAQ:VIP) Russian business has confirmed the operator is looking at selling towers.
The CEO of VimpelCom’s (NASDAQ:VIP) Russian business has confirmed the operator is looking at selling towers.
On 10 August TelecomFinance reported that VimpelCom had mandated the Moscow branch of Merrill Lynch to start a fresh process to sell towers in Russia.
Speaking at a conference in Moscow on 30 September, Mikhail Slobodin, head of VimpelCom’s Russian mobile operator, reportedly said it was considering selling sites “very seriously”.
Slobodin, who defined towers as “non-core” assets, said they could be spun off and sold, according to a Reuters report. He said proceeds could be used for “network investments or acquisitions”, without going in to specifics.
His comments echo those previously made by Jean-YvesCharlier, VimpelCom’s new group CEO. In early August, Charlier said that under its globalised, asset-light strategy, Vimpelcom would “dispose of tower portfolios, just as we have done in Italy” and “selectively enter into network sharing agreements,” particularly in larger markets.
Charlier said that with 50,000 towers, the company had one of the world’s largest tower portfolios.
Potential buyers for sites in Russia include Russian Towers, the country’s only significant independent towerco, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a US$10bn fund aimed at domestic equity investments.
It is unclear how many of those sites the company would look to offload in any sale. If a disposal went ahead, VimpelCom would be the first Russian mobile operator to part with towers.
VimpelCom and Merrill Lynch did not reply to requests for comment before the press deadline.