Having received the green light from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) last month, Megafon, a leading Russian mobile operator, and Scartel, the WiMAX provider switching to LTE and operating under the Yota brand, are to become part of the same holding.
The news, which Russian business daily Vedomosti reported yesterday from a source close to both companies, should be announced officially in the forthcoming days.
Garsdale Services, a company registered in the Virgin Islands, will own 50% plus one share of Megafon and 100% of Scartel. Alisher Usmanov, a Kremlin-friendly oligarch who is also a shareholder of the Russian Internet conglomerate Mail.ru Group and the global Internet investment fund DST, will own 82% of the holding. The remaining 18% will be shared equally between Russian entrepreneur Sergey Adoniev and Rostechnologii, a major IT corporation involved in the defense industry.
In a preliminary agreement signed in March, Megafon was valued at $15 billion and Scartel was valued at $1.5 billion (or $1 billion without including debts).
The new group will be able to deploy LTE networks in a more cost-efficient way. It could contend for leadership on the Russian mobile broadband market, based on Megafon’s advanced 3G network and infrastructure and Scartel’s LTE frequencies across Russia.
At the present time, Scartel has launched LTE networks in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Samara, Sochi and Krasnodar, and provides its frequencies to Megafon in the same cities. FAS authorized the deal under the condition that Scartel make its existing LTE frequencies and infrastructure available not only to Megafon but to all other players without discrimination.
So far, Scartel has made such agreements only with Rostelecom, the national telecom operator – a minority stake of which could possibly be transferred to the holding, according to Vedomosti. Discussions are being held with three other operators, MTS, Vimpelcom and Tele2, the business daily also reports.
