Comstar agrees Svyazinvest stake sale

Russian service provider Comstar-UTS has agreed the sale of its 25% plus one share stake in network operator Svyazinvest to telco Rostelecom for a total of RUB26bn (€678m).

Comstar has agreed the sale of its 17.31% stake in Svyazinvest to Rostelecom for RUB18bn, and Comstar subsidiary MGTS Finance has also received corporate approval for the sale of a 7.69% stake in Svyazinvest to Rostelecom for RUB8bn. Proceeds from the sale will be used by Comstar to pay down its outstanding debt to Sberbank. 

The move is dependent on a number of approvals and related transactions, including one between Comstar’s owner Sistema and Svyazinvest that will see the latter acquire 100% control of SkyLink and Sistema take over a 23.33% in Moscow city network operator MGTS. The Comstar group of companies currently owns 25% plus one share of Svyazinvest, while Comstar has a 69.93% stake in MGTS. Svyazinvest owns a 23.33% stake in MGTS and a 38% stake in Rostelecom (50.67% of the voting shares).

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