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Articles & publications
28.05.2010
Sistema to pay Svyazinvest an additional RUR 450 mln for MGTSRBC daily, Elizaveta Sergina
The asset swap transaction between AFK Sistema and Svyazinvest will not be entirely in non-cash form, as assumed initially. Sistema will pay Svyazinvest about RUR 450 mln to offset the difference in the value of assets which are slated for the swap.
A source close to one of the parties clarifies that the additional payment according to an agreement between the two holdings should be at least RUR 300 mln. “This figure is currently under discussion and the issue of how big the premium should be is still to be agreed upon”. The source pointed out that AFK and Svyazinvest are expected to sign an exchange agreement which will set out the key parameters of the transaction. People at AFK Sistema declined to comment on this news. This was also the case at Svyazinvest.
In line with the asset exchange transaction between AFK Sistema and Svyazinvest Comstar will give back to the state its blocking stake in Svyazinvest, in return for which it will receive the holding’s stake in MGTS, and also have its RUR 26 bln debt to Sberbank written off. At the end of April 2010 Sistema announced that it had acquired 50% of Sky Link from RTDC for the purpose of reselling it to Svyazinvest. The asset swap was approved by the boards of directors of Rostelecom and Comstar around the middle of May. An agreement between Rostelecom and Comstar was signed on May 21, 2010. According to a source at Svyazinvest, the asset swap transaction is to be wrapped up at the beginning of this summer, i.e. before the merger process between RTOs and Rostelecom gets under way.
”At the time when the terms of the deal were approved, Sky Link was appraised with quite a big premium – approximately RUR 1-2 bln. Apparently, the management of Svyazinvest managed to convince Sistema to review its views on the fair value of Sky Link. All the more, since this deal is more necessary to AFK Sistema, given that the latter needs to get Comstar out of debt, whereas it is not so important to Svyazinvest, at the end of the day, whether Sistema is among its shareholders or not”, Veles Capital analyst Ilya Fedotov contends. Earlier Svyazinvest entered into an agreement with AFK Sistema to write off the shareholder debt of Sky Link (see RBC Daily article dated April 27, 2010). The operator’s total debt stood at approximately $350 mln, about 40% of it was written off, which is roughly equal to the amount of shareholder debt.
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