Norway’s Telenor has refuted suggestions it breached a Russian foreign investment law when it upped its stake in the federation’s third largest mobile operator, Vimpelcom.
The comment comes in reply to earlier media reports that Russia’s…
Norway’s Telenor has refuted suggestions it breached a Russian foreign investment law when it upped its stake in the federation’s third largest mobile operator, Vimpelcom.
The comment comes in reply to earlier media reports that Russia’s antitrust regulator FAS is preparing a lawsuit against the telecoms group regarding its stake in Vimpelcom.
A Telenor spokesperson said the company “believes all actions it has taken are fully compliant with Russian law”.
According to reports FAS believes Telenor broke a law concerning foreign investment in strategically important local companies.
However, the Telenor spokesperson said the company had not received any official documentation from the FAS about a possible lawsuit and therefore had no further comments to offer.
“Telenor has kept the FAS fully up to date on the latest transactions, underlining that our position in Vimpelcom has not changed substantially since the FAS gave its approval to the formation of Vimpelcom in February 2010,” the spokesperson said.
Telenor has twice boosted its stake in Russia-founded, Amsterdam-based Vimpelcom this year.
In February, Telenor had purchased 234 million Vimpelcom preferred shares from Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris’ Weather Investments for US$374.4m, thereby increasing its voting share to 36.36%. At the time, Telenor CEO Jon Fredrik said the company would also work to increase its membership on the VimpelCom board to 11 members.
In April, Telenor further boosted its stake in Vimpelcom in a US$715m deal with JP Morgan Securities. In a statement to the Oslo bourse, Telenor said it had acquired 65 million common shares in the company, thereby increasing its financial interest from 31.67% to 35.66% and its voting interest from 36.36% to 39.51%.
The other major shareholders in VimpelCom are Altimo, the investment arm of Russia’s Alfa Group, Weather Investments and Bertofan Investments, a Cyprus-registered investment vehicle linked to Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuck.
The FAS was not immediately available for comment.
