Alfa has no preemptive right to buy Telenor stake in VimpelCom Ltd
MOSCOW. Oct 5 (Interfax) - L1 Technologies, a firm set up by Alfa Group, which owned by Mikhail Fridman and his business partners, has no preemptive right to buy Telenor out of VimpelCom Ltd.
"The shareholders' agreement is no longer valid, and VimpelCom's charter no longer provides for preemptive right," Severin Roald, Telenor SVP and Head of Group Communications, told Interfax.
L1 declined to comment. Its head, Alexei Reznikovich, told Interfax in June last year the company was not interested in buying Telenor out. "We consider we have a big enough stake in VimpelCom as it is and it would not be right to put all our eggs in one basket," he said at the time.
Telenor said on Monday that it intended to divest all its shares in VimpelCom Ltd., where the company has an economic stake of 33%.