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Articles & publications
18.06.2010
Rostelecom could take over a number of local operators in 2010RIA Novosti
Rostelecom, Russia’s national LD operator, intends in 2010 to take over a number of telecommunications operators in 2010, first and foremost, local voice, RIA Novosti was told by the general director of the company Anton Kolpakov on the sidelines of the International Economic Forum held recently in Saint Petersburg.
“We’re in the process of examining some options related to telecommunications assets. First of all, this applies to local operators. So far we have no clear proposals related to backbone operators. We also have proposals regarding local operators”, Mr. Kolpakov noted.
He went on to say that whether or not one or another asset is taken over will depend on “the ability to create synergy with RTOs (regional telecommunications operators controlled by Svyazinvest – editor), and how well RTOs will work with alternative operators. He explained that the opposite might also be true as they might hinder each other in their operations. Kolpakov noted that Rostelecom’s budget provides funds for “a certain scale” of M&A transactions, although he declined to specify the exact amount.
He said that Rostelecom now has sufficient funds, but that if the chance arises to perform a large transaction comparable with the purchase of Comstar-UTS’s blocking stake in Svyazinvest, then the company could resort to issuing bonds. In addition, Kolpakov pointed out that if this placement goes through, it would be after the reorganization of Svyazinvest when RTOs are folded into Rostelecom.
“Recently, we took out a RUR 30 bln on quite attractive terms, and I see no real need for a bond issue for the time being, since these funds will be sufficient to carry out the tasks we need to accomplish now. If we decide to issue a bonded loan, it would likely be for another purpose, such as M&A activity or our investment program, and of course this issue would be related to the budget of the merged Rostelecom”, the general director of the company said.
On the whole, Mr. Kolpakov said that in terms of takeover targets the company would be interested either in core telecommunications assets, i.e. companies which hold certain market positions, or companies that possess certain infrastructure resources. “That is, these might be companies with weak market positions, but which possess backbone resources. This is the kind of companies we’ll be looking at”, Mr. Kolpakov pointed out.
He went on to say that Rostelecom is also interested in companies “which are specialized in certain areas, and which are of interest to us in terms of their further expansion and business diversification”. He cited as a example of this the purchase of a 25% stake in system integrator NVision. “This company is not a telecommunications operator, but it operates in a number of business areas which are of interest to us”, Kolpakov went on to say.
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