Last week, Rostelecom, the Russian national telecom operator, announced two acquisitions almost simultaneously, reflecting its ambitions to integrate a variety of networks and services across Russia and assert itself as a universal operator.
The company announced it consolidated its ownership of NTK, a leading cable operator, of which it had already bought a 71.8% stake one year ago. Rostelecom paid 13.8 billion rubles, a little less that $470 million, for the remaining 28.2% stake.
NTK provides 5.1 million households with television, Internet access and telephony services. Its revenues amounted to 10.8 billion rubles, or approximately $370 million, in 2011, up 14% from 2010.
Rostelecom also confirmed the acquisition of Enter, a provider of fixed broadband Internet access in Siberia owned by the Dutch company Consumer Enter B. V. Established in 2005, Enter serves 22,000 customers in Barnaul, Novokuznetsk and Tyumen, three major Siberian cities.
The move to acquire Enter follows the green light Rostelecom received in January from the Russian antimonopoly authorities.
Sources: Rostelecom, RIA Novosti
