Norwegian-Russian telecoms firm, Vimpelcom announced yesterday that it signed a deal with Egyptian billionaire, Naguib Sawiris, to buy all of Italian mobile operator, Wind, as well as a majority stake in Egypt’s Orascom Telecom.
According to a statement by Vimpelcom this agreement will establish the world’s fifth largest mobile telecoms carrier in terms of subscribers, with expected revenue of $21.5 billion. Vimpelcom will own 51.7% share in Orascom and 100% in Wind.
The shares are being acquired from Weather Investments, a holding company of Sawiris, one of the richest men in the Middle East, with an estimated fortune of $2.5 Billion.
The total value of the acquisition has not been announced, but Russian business daily, Vedomosti, estimated the value at $6.4 billion.
As part of the agreement, Weather Investments will receive a 20% economic stake and a 18.5% voting stake in the new Vimpelcom group.
The cash shares transaction also includes a $1.8 billion cash payment.
Vimpelcom is a joint venture of Norwegian telecoms firm, Telenor, and Russian banking group, Alfa, which was established in 2009 after a prolonged squabble between the two companies. Vimpelcom has licenses for operation across Russia, where it owns top operator, Beeline. It also operates in Ukraine as well as the entire territories of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Vietnam and Combodia.
0 comments:
Post a Comment