According to the newspaper “Vedomosti”, citing a source close to VimpelCom, the sale of a 33 percent stake owned by Telenor, is a matter of the next two months. According to the interlocutor of the edition, the Norwegian company is looking for institutional investors and has already planned a road-show. There is another option — a gradual sale of shares in the market.
British industry publication TMT Finance also announced plans to Telenor to sell its stake in September of this year on the London stock exchange.
A source close to one of the partners of the Norwegian group, said that to find a single buyer for 33% of VimpelCom Ltd will fail because of the value of the shares. For this reason, Telenor has hired investment banks mandated to explore the possibility of selling shares in the market.
The publication indicates that the pre-emptive right of redemption of share Telenor in VimpelCom owned LetterOne Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichev. But Friedman assured the journalists that he did not intend to increase its share.
Analyst “FC Opening” Alexander Vengranovich recalls that at the time of such transactions the shares are sold at a discount to market. At the same time, perhaps, Telenor expects that the paper will rise in price in the case of a positive decision of the European Commission for the deal in Italy with Wind operator VimpelCom — can combine with Three, owned by Dutch holding company Hutchison.
Raiffeisenbank analyst Sergei Libin believes that the sale of the stake to Telenor increase the liquidity of securities, which in turn increases the chance of contact with the company in a number of prestigious indices.
