Tele2 Russia, the local unit of Swedish alternative network Tele2, has offered US$390m for 97% of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS Group, reports Telegeography.
The price includes US$100m in debt.
A spokesperson for Tele2 was not available for…
Tele2 Russia, the local unit of Swedish alternative network Tele2, has offered US$390m for 97% of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS Group, reports Telegeography.
The price includes US$100m in debt.
A spokesperson for Tele2 was not available for comment by press time.
The Samara based operator serves 16 regions with a total population of 34 million people.
At the end of April, Tele2 Russia acquired six new GSM licences in the Far East of the country, in the regions of Evreyskaya, Sakhalinskaya, Magadanskaya, Chukotskiy, Kamchatskiy and Koryakskiy.
Its presence reportedly does not overlap with that of SMARTS – which serves Samara, Ivanovo, Astrakhan, Penza, Ulyanovsk, Volgograd and Saratov Regions, plus the Republics of Bashkortostan, Kalmykia, Tatarstan, Mordovia, Mari El and Chuvashia. Samara, in the southeastern part of European Russia, is the country’s sixth largest city.
Telegeography notes that Svyazinvest, Russia’s state-owned telecoms holding, bid US$1-1.5bn for SMARTS in 2009, eventually withdrawing its offer.
SMARTS reportedly boasts some 2.5 million subscribers.
