Disqus
The Russian government has acquired a 20% stake in Indian mobile network Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd (SSTL) for $676.9 million. The operator will use the funds to build-out its network across India. The plan involves issuing 662.75 million shares, a 19.8% stake, on a preferred basis to the Russian Federal Property Agency at RUB49.31 ($2) each. Sistema pledged to buy back the government’s SSTL shares in five years’ time.
Prior to this deal, SSTL was 73.71%-owned by Russian conglomerate Sistema, India’s Shyam Group held 23.79%, and the remainder was spread across minority shareholders. After the deal, Sistema reduced its holding in the Indian company to about 54%.
According to SSTL’s CEO Vsevolod Rozanov, the new share-holding pattern will “improve the financial stability of SSTL and will increase its share value.”
For the record, SSTL is a CDMA-based carrier operating in 8 eight of India’s 22 telecom service areas. At the end of Q3 2009, it had just under 2 million connections.
[Via: GSMA]
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
