2 Dec 2009 20:03

MTS files for clearance to buy Eurotel

MOSCOW. Dec 2 (Interfax) - Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) has filed for clearance with the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service to buy trunk like operator Eurotel, Konstantin Senichkin, head of the FAS department for transport and communications, told Interfax.

The request was filed on November 25. Senichkin did not say how much of Eurotel MTS wanted to buy.

MTS spokeswoman Yelena Kokhanovskaya told Interfax that MTS was in talks on the Eurotel acquisition and that a decision would be reached when the FAS has responded to the request.

The businessman Leonid Melamed controls Eurotel, which controls 19,000 kilometers of fiber-optic networks.