Vimpelcom will sell several of its emerging market businesses in Africa and Asia as part of a rationalization of its global telecoms operations. The group intends to focus on more mature markets such as Russia and Italy, which make up about 70% of its business, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
However, Vimpelcom will retain some strategic growth market businesses such as in Algeria, FT has learned from unnamed sources.
“The Russian telecoms group has spoken to potential buyers of its sub-Saharan African units from Burundi and the Central African Republic. It is also expected to sell its Zimbabwean business – Telecel Zimbabwe – after resolving outstanding ownership and licensing issues,” the British business daily writes.
The Russian operator serves 2.8 million mobile subscribers and generates $94 million in revenues in these countries, according to FT. These African assets businesses could be valued at more than $60 million.
In Asia, VimpelCom is considering the sale of its businesses in Cambodia and in Laos, where it serves about 1 million and 400,000 subscribers, respectively.
The group’s Asian subsidiaries – including Vietnam, which has already been sold in April of this year – generated revenues of $69 million, according to FT.
Vimpelcom and Wind Telecom merged last year to create the world’s sixth largest mobile telecommunications provider by number of subscribers with operations in 20 countries.
But the group has been criticized by analysts as resembling more of a collection of disparate telecoms assets than a cohesive operator with resulting synergies, FT notes.
Scartel, the leading Russian WiMAX and LTE operator operating under the Yota brand, also intends to focus more on Russia rather than on foreign markets. It stopped operations in Bielorussia earlier this year.
