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'Altimo puts brakes on TeliaSonera joint venture'(DMeurope Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Russia's Alfa said it's going slowly with its proposed deal to set up a regional joint venture with TeliaSonera amid signs of opposition from the Russian government. TeliaSonera and Alfa unit Altimo have proposed merging their stakes in Russian mobile operator Megafon and Turkcell. Alfa is also merging its stakes in mobile operator Vimpelcom and Ukraine's Kyistar with Telenor's holdings in the companies in a separate joint venture. Last month, the head of Russia's anti-monopoly service, Igor Artemyev, said that Alfa could not pursue the two deals with Telenor and TeliaSonera simultaneously. In a statement to the Financial Times, the telecoms ministry said it shared Artemyev's position and added that both the Telenor and the TeliaSonera deals would be a violation of the laws on foreign investment as it would hand control of companies "with strategic importance to Russia" to foreign investors. Alexei Reznikovich, chief executive of Altimo, told the FT that Altimo would go slow on the TeliaSonera deal for now. He said Altimo would not apply for regulatory approval on the deal until a long-running legal battle with the third shareholder in Turkcell, Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, the Turkish billionaire, had been resolved. "It is premature to talk about any deal now between Turkcell and Megafon," he said. A spokesperson for TeliaSonera said it could take "a couple of years" before the proposed joint venture was listed. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) (c) 2010 M2 COMMUNICATIONS |