MegaFon buys SMARTS subsidiary in Yaroslavl
MOSCOW. Aug 14 (Interfax) - MegaFon , one of Russia's top three mobile service providers, has acquired 100% of CJSC Yaroslavl GSM, a subsidiary of regional mobile operator SMARTS , the company said in a statement.
The cost of the deal was not stated in the statement.
Earlier, Megafon board of directors approved the acquisition of three more SMARTS subsidiaries, Astrakhan GSM, SMARTS-Cheboksary, and SMARTS-Samara.
Megafon got the first SMARTS asset in February of last year, when the sides closed a deal for the sale of SMARTS-Volgograd for 46 million rubles.
SMARTS is gradually selling its mobile assets in the regions. Last autumn, the company shareholders approved the company's reorganization by allocating six subsidiaries, SMARTS-Samara, SMARTS-Elista, SMARTS-Saransk, SMARTS-Saratov, SMARTS-Yoshkar-Ola, and SMARTS-Ulyankovsk.
Reorganization will simplify the procedure for attracting investors, the company's founder Gennady Kiryushin said.
In December of last year SMARTS assets in the Penza and Ivanovo regions, as well in Bashkortostan were acquired by Mobile Telesystems (MTS) for 3.13 billion rubles, including net debt. The purchase allowed MTS to use frequencies in the range of 1800 MHz with LTE-technology.
At the end of June 2015, VimpelCom bought 100% of SMARTS-Elista. The price for this deal was not made known.
Before the reorganization and sales of SMARTS assets, the company controlled companies and branches in 13 regions including in the Volga, Southern, and Central Federal Districts. Q2 results for 2015 show a subscriber base of 1.08 million people.