TeliaSonera, a telephone and mobile phone operator with operations in Finland and Sweden, and Altimo, a Russian telecommunications firm, will be combining their assets in the mobile phone operators Turkcell and MegaFon to form a new company, with plans to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). According to a press release from both parties, the goal of this new partnership is to create an international mobile phone operator with operations in Turkey, Russia and within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).This new operator’s goal is to have a total of 90 million users. Once established, the new company will own a majority of the shares in both Turkcell and MegaFon. AF Telecom, a GSM mobile phone supplier and the third major shareholder in MegaFon, was also invited to take part in this new partnership.
According to the press release, the executive board will contain independent board members unrelated to the partners involved. The new board structure will make it difficult for any one major stakeholder to take control of the new company.
Because of the “national champion” status of MegaFon and Turkcell, they will be run independently of each other, even with the change in ownership structure. Moreover, the parties have agreed that Altimo will acquire Çukurova Group’s indirect shares in Turkcell and contribute them to the new company. In addition to this, TeliaSonera, the controlling shareholder of Fintur Holdings, a mobile phone operator in Central Asia, will acquire 100 percent of Fintur Holdings by purchasing Turkcell’s shares in the company at market value.
Lars Nyberg, president and CEO of TeliaSonera, announced: “I am very pleased that we have reached an agreement with Altimo to combine our efforts in resolving the legal disputes … But the real value of the agreement is in the execution of it. The shareholder structure and control of Turkcell and MegaFon will improve, as well as the liquidity of these assets. We have focused on creating a governance structure where all major parties will have good possibilities to influence, without single-handedly controlling, the management of the new telecommunications group.”
