Category: M&A
Last week, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported that the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) received a joint request from mobile operator Megafon and WiMAx operator Scartel, which operates under the Yota brand, to authorize a merger.
Head of FAS Igor Artemyev stated that the merger could be authorized under the condition that Scartel makes its LTE network under deployment available to all players without any discrimination.
2011 was a rather disappointing year for M&A both globally and in Russia. Compared to the 6% decline in the value of global M&A deals, Russia’s M&A market experienced an even stronger reduction in value, by almost 28%. This is a sign of its continuing higher volatility, but also the result of fewer mega deals taking place than in previous years.
The top of the league table, as well as overall activity, is dominated by domestic activity, reflecting the current low appetite of foreign investors in relation to acquiring Russian assets.
Vimpelcom, a leading Russian mobile operator with a broad international presence, announced last week that it would sell its 49% stake in Vietnam’s GTel Mobile, a JV it had set up in mid-2009 with local Global Telecommunications Corporation.
Under the terms of the $45 million deal, the Russian telco is relinquishing operational control of GTel Mobile and sanctioning a six-month transition period for the Vietnamese partner to discontinue use of the Beeline trademark.
RBC Daily reported earlier this week that Scartel, the leading Russian WiMAX operator operating under the Yota brand, is considering selling its Belorussian subsidiary, Yota Bel, just a few months after starting operations in this country of almost 10 million inhabitants.
Such a move would confirm Scartel’s intention to focus more on Russia rather than on foreign markets. This presumed new startegy was previously illustrated in December, when the Russian operator sold its stake in Yota Del Peru.
Just two months after it began serving Kazakhstan, Biglion, the leading Russian daily deal site, has acquired Bongo.by, a Belorussian analog. The transaction was announced yesterday by Biglion’s Development Director Oleg Savtsov in an exchange with Russian business daily Kommersant.
Savtsov did not disclose the amount of the deal, but Kommersant reported that Bongo.by is likely to have been valued at $1 milllion or less, citing unnamed experts.
Fast Lane Ventures announced last week it has agreed to sell its stake in the TV and online teleshopping company Shopping Live to the German group Home Shopping Europe for an undisclosed amount.
A 24-hour channel, Shopping Live offers live programming up to five hours per day. The channel is currently represented on such major satellite TV operators as Kontinent TV and Tricolor TV as well as on the cable TV channel of MTS, a leading Russian mobile operator.
Kupikupon.ru, a major daily deal site, has acquired Moresalonov.ru, an online booking service for beauty salons, for an undisclosed amount, reported Unova, a Russian site dedicated to high tech and venture news.
The clients of Kupikupon.ru will be able to plan visits to beauty salons and book appointments more easily. Bookings for restaurants, car maintenance, and medical service providers will also soon be included on Moresalonov.ru.
1C, the Russian enterprise software giant, has acquired a 51% stake in Megaplan, a publisher of cloud-based business service solutions, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported yesterday. The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
The Russian management company IQ One, an early investor in Megaplan, has kept a blocking minority share in the company.
The Russian mobile operator MTS is considering selling a stake of its online paid video site Omlet.ru, the operator’s VP of Marketing Vasily Latsanich announced earlier this week at a press conference. “A content business should be separated from a mobile operator’s business, and we are not the only ones on the market to believe so,” the Russian online business publication CNews.ru quoted him as saying.
“We are considering selling a stake in this asset in order to make it more market oriented. A content business cannot eternally parasitize a mobile operator,” he added, without mentioning the size of the stake being considered for sale.
Last week, Rostelecom, the Russian national telecom operator, announced two acquisitions almost simultaneously, reflecting its ambitions to integrate a variety of networks and services across Russia and assert itself as a universal operator.
The company announced it consolidated its ownership of NTK, a leading cable operator, of which it had already bought a 71.8% stake one year ago. Rostelecom paid 13.8 billion rubles, a little less that $470 million, for the remaining 28.2% stake.
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