Shareholders of VimpelCom, one of Russia's top three cell phone operators, have approved a deal to buy Italy's Wind Telecom to create the world's fifth largest telecom operator, VimpelCom said in a statement on Thursday.
The shareholders approved the enlargement of the company's authorized capital by issuing an additional 325.6 million ordinary and 305 million convertible privileged shares in favor of Wind Telecom, owned by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris. VimpelCom will also pay $1.495 billion in cash to Wind shareholders to close the transaction, the Russian cell pone firm said.
"The approval by our shareholders of this transformative union with Wind Telecom will lead to the creation of a new global telecom player with over 173 million mobile subscribers covering a population of 838 million people," VimpelCom CEO and President Alexander Izosimov said in the statement.
"The combined group will have a significantly diversified revenue base, a substantially larger scale of operations, and potential synergies estimated at $2.5 billion on a net present value basis."
The transaction will cut the share of Norway's Telenor, a VimpelCom shareholder, which opposed the merger deal, to 25% of the voting stock from the current 36.03%, and the share of Altimo, the telecoms arm of Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group, to 31% from 44.65%. The share of VimpleCom minority shareholders will drop to 13.4% from 19.32%.
MOSCOW, March 17 (RIA Novosti)
