RUSSIAN ANALYZERS ESTIMATE THE 90% OF ARMENTEL SHARES $180 MILLION

Yerevan, April 13. ArmInfo. Russian analyzers appreciate the 90%
shares of ArmenTel $180 million. Referring to MDM bank expert Phillip
Townsend, ‘Vedomosti’ newspaper, Russia, reports that last year
‘Vympelcom’ company started talks with the Greek owners of ArmenTel
about the possible purchase of ArmenTel, but the talks were suspended
because of the position of the Armenian Government. Now when the
matter has been cleared with the Government, the negotiations are
renewed. To Phillip Townsend’s opinion ‘Vympelcom’, owner of BILINE
trademark, will have no problem with buying ArmenTel as in 2007 the
company will posses as minimum $850 million free cash.

According to ‘Vedomosti’, in its turn the OTE company, Greece,
stated that it has started considering various variants of dealing
with the 90% of ArmenTel shares after settling the matter with the
Armenian authorities.

Other cell-operators of Russia also expressed interest in purchasing
ArmenTel. ‘Systema Telecom’ company is also interested in ArmenTel,
told ArmInfo correspondent public contacts director of the company
Anna Boyko. Similar statements were made by ‘Megaphon’ press secretary
Marina Belasheva and ‘Vympelcom’ press secretary Yulia Ostroukhova.

“Mobile service operators are searching for new opportunities to invest
their money to promote their businesses and the purchase of Armentel
is not a bad opportunity,” says managing partner of ACM-Consulting
Mikhail Alexeyev. He notes that despite small population – 3.2 mln –
Armenia still has a low rate of mobile service use – 20%. The country’s
mobile market began to actually develop only last year when K Telecom
started its work in the country, says chief editor of Comnews Leonid
Konik. During ArmenTel’s monopoly people queued for months to get
mobile cards and bought SIM-cards for $200 on the black market.

OTE bought ArmenTel in Mar 1998 from the Armenian Government (41%) and
Transworld Telecommunications (49%). The company committed itself to
invest $200 mln in Armentel in exchange of 15-year monopoly but failed
its commitments. As a result, in late 2004 the Armenian Transport
and Communication Ministry gave one more mobile service license to
K-Telecom. ArmenTel and the ministry refuse to say yet why OTE is
going to sell ArmenTel’s assets.