Tele2 sets sights on Russia

Pan European alternative service provider Tele2 is today reported to be moving to acquire Russian operator SMARTS for as much as $700m (ВЈ385m).

Russian investment bank Aton Capital said that such a deal that would raise the Swedish company’s share of Russian subscribers from 3.2 per cent to 5.6 per cent and make it the fourth largest cellular operator after Mobile TeleSystems, VimpelCom and MegaFon.

Aton does not believe the deal will have a material impact on Russia’s mobile market as Tele2 will not have the economies of scale of the big three, while the mobile operations of regional telecoms will continue to benefit from fixed-to-mobile synergies.

Earlier this month Tele2 announced it has acquired the remaining 30 per cent of Russian regional operator Siberian Cellular Communications (SCC) it did not already own. Tele2 raised its stakes in five regional Russian operations in February, in a potential move to make the assets more attractive to potential suitors.

Tags: Operators, Regional, Russia, SMARTS, Tele2

This entry was posted on June 23rd, 2006 and is filed under Operators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.