Akhmetov’s SCM buys Ukrtelecom

“SCM group will become the owner of
UA Telecominvest Limited , and will gain control over 92.79 of shares
after receiving all necessary permire, including from antimonopoly
organs,” the companies’ statement said.

Ukrtelecom is the owner of
about 80 percent of the nation’s fixed lines, and holder of the
Ukraine’s only 3G mobile license. The company was privatized in 2010
to the little-known Austrian investment firm Epic through a deal that
left many questions about its transparency and made market insiders
speculate that the company was a front of one of Ukraine’s oligarchs.
Epic denied this.

Epic
was the sole bidder in a tender that analysts said was noncompetitive, as it excluded potential bidders such as Norway’s Telenor and
Deutsche Telekom, because of strict conditions. This
was the first significant privatization deal after the election of
President Viktor Yanukovych, which pulled $1.3
billion into the state coffers.

Ukrtelecom,
which has shed thousands of workers and undergone a restructuring
since the sale, had a revenue of $1.02 billion last year, and a net
profit of $45 million.

SCM is
Ukraine’s largest business group with revenues of $23.47 billion in
2012 and assets of over 300,000 employees. The
groups has a number of assets in Ukrtelecom, including Vega telecoms
operator, and minority owner of Astelit, the owner of Life:) mobile
brand, the third largest in Ukraine.

Kyiv Post editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at gorchinskaya@kyivpost.com.