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Greeks have shortlisted biddersfor Armentel Roman Dorohov Russia’s MTS and Vympelcom along with two international consortiums have been shortlisted to submit bids for a 90% stake in Armentel, put up for sale by Greece’s OTE. Experts estimate the cost of the package at about $290-350 mln, but some of the candidates are willing to pay even more. vedomosti.ru, June 23, 2006 OTE has selected the main bidders for its 90% stake in Armentel from a pool of ten companies. According to Reuters, Russia’s MTS and Vympelcom along with two international consortiums have been shortlisted. One of the alliances includes two UAE companies — Emirates Telecommunications Corporation and Istithmar, and Switzerland’s Emergent Telecom Ventures, holding a package of the Russian company Synterra. The other consortium is comprised of India’s VTEL Holdings and Guernsey-based Knightsbridge Associates. Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, Norway’s Telenor and Sweden’s TeliaSonera and Tele2, as well as Russia’s CBOSS have failed to pass the prequalification. Russian claimants for Armentel have declined to reveal the cost of the package citing the confidentiality agreement. Vympelcom’s Yulia Ostrouhova and MTS’ Kirill Alyavdin said that both companies are interested in acquiring CIS-based assets. According to the partner of Emergent Telecom Ventures Mohamed Amersi, Armentel is appealing not only to Russian but also to Asian carriers, as well as companies in the Middle East. He said that telecommunication markets in the Caucasus and Central Asia show a very high growth potential and the situation resembles that of Russia ten years ago. Amersi also confirmed Emergent striving to acquire telecom assets in other countries of the region but refused to be more precise citing the confidentiality agreement. He estimates Armentel to cost more than $350 mln — but Emergent is not willing to pay more. CBOSS’ Senior Vice President Alexander Prikazchikov said he has no official information from OTE. However, if CBOSS has indeed failed to pass the prequalification, this decision should belong to the OTE’s British consultants rather than the Greek company itself. In Prikazchikov’s opinion, the consultants prefer the financial to the telecommunications terminology used by CBOSS. “It would have been easier for me to find a common language with telecommunications experts”, — he adds. According to Prikazchikov, Armentel’s stock is worth $300-350 mln. Yuly Matevosov, director of the analytical department at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, says that the deal is generally appealing to the Russian telecom market, while none of the “big three” carriers are so far present on the Transcaucasian market. Konstantin Chernyshev, associate director of the Uralsib’s analytical department, says that despite a relatively small mobile subscriber base, Armentel can boast fixed line services in its portfolio. Chernyshev adds that the winner of the tender could give this business to its partner, for example, Comstar (in case of MTS) or Golden Telecom (in case of Vympelcom). ACM-Consulting analyst Anton Pogrebinsky notes that Armenia’s population is only about 3 mln. His estimate of the stock value is $300-350 mln, while Atona’s Elena Bazhenova gives a lower estimation — $290-300 mln. According to her, the acquisition of Armentel will not significantly expand the business of Russian telecom carriers. Armentel holds the monopoly on the fixed-line market and has a GSM license. Its 90% stake belongs to Greece’s Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE), which paid $142 mln to acquire the company in 1997. 10% of the company is owned by the Armenian government. In 1997, Armentel got the guarantee for monopoly on the Armenian market for the next 15 years, but the Armenian government was disappointed in OTE and granted a GSM license to K Telecom in November, 2004. The company launched the VivaCell brand in July 2005. By the end of March 2006, Armentel was serving more than 328,600 mobile subscribers – almost the same number as K Telecom. Moreover, Armentel has almost 600,000 fixed-line subscribers. In 2005, Armentel posted operating revenues of $145,3 mln and a net income of $55,9 mln. Correction |
