By Olga Razumovskaya
MOSCOW--Altimo, a subsidiary of Russian conglomerate Alfa Group
(ALFAGP.YY), said Monday it has no immediate comment on Norwegian
Telenor's (TEL.OS) proposal to end the conflict over VimpelCom Ltd.
(VIP).
Evgeny Dumalkin, vice president at Altimo, said his company had
seen Telenor's statement and is preparing a response. Altimo later
said that there will be no comment Monday.
Norwegian telecom operator Telenor said Monday it has exercised
an option to buy further shares in Russian operator VimpelCom Ltd.
and proposed a deal to settle its long-running dispute with rival
shareholder Altimo.
Telenor said it has bought an additional 71 million preferred
shares in VimpelCom from Egypt-based Weather Investments II, after
Weather exercised a put option under an agreement the companies
entered into in February, when Telenor also bought VimpelCom shares
from Weather. The deal gives Telenor 42.95% of voting rights in
VimpelCom, up from 39.5%, and takes Weather's voting rights down to
0.04% from 3.5%.
"Head of Russian anti-monopoly service Igor Artemyev regrets
this (deal). Telenor's exercising an option to buy out VimpelCom's
shares goes against the decision of the Russian court," a
spokesperson for the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service told Prime news
agency.
-Sven Grundberg contributed to this article.
Write to Olga Razumovskaya olga.razumovskaya@dowjones.com
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