Vedomosti: "Yevtushenkov Offer"
AFK Sistema's owner Vladimir Yevtushenkov offered Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to transfer to the Government 25% plus one share of Svyazinvest in exchange for writing off a Sistema affiliate's 26-billion roubles debt to Sberbank and a controlling stake in MGTS.
During a meeting with Prime Minister Putin, Mr Yevtushenkov gave him a letter, in which he detailed his offer to return to the Government 25% plus one share of Svyazinvest. The letter says that Comstar-OTS, controlled by Sistema, is ready to return the controlling stake to the Government and thus to eliminate its five-year old debt to Sberbank (the loan was issued in 2007 on security of the controlling stake) and receive the Svyazinvest share in MGTS (28% of the stock), a manager with AFK and a source close to Svyazinvest told Vedomosti. According to the sources, the Prime Minister instructed appropriate agencies to consider the offer.
The Government Executive Office and the Ministry of Telecommunications and Mass Media refused to comment, while an official at the Ministry of Economic Development said that he was unaware of the letter. In Svyazinvest, they also do not know anything about the letter, says Igor Pshenichnikov, the company's external communications department director. Sberbank's representative Irina Kibina declined to comment on the situation, but said that the bank was ready to consider various ways of debt restructuring to assist businesses.
Mr Yevtushenkov was unavailable yesterday evening, but Sistema representative Irina Potekhina confirmed that he discussed the Svyazinvest development strategies with Prime Minister Putin. According to Ms Potekhina, the exchange of the controlling stake for 28% of MGTS and writing off Sberbank's debt is only one option offered in the letter. "Sistema believes that Svyazinvest has very good prospects for increasing its value and is ready to take part in managing this strategic asset; if this is not possible, however, it is ready to sell the company, but for a fair price," Ms Potekhina said.
Comstar-OTS bought the controlling stake of Svyazinvest in December 2006 for $1.3 billion. Last fall, Mr Yevtushenkov offered Prime Minister Putin to consider a possibility of buying out by the Government the controlling stake for $1.9 billion. The Ministries of Communications and Economic Development, as well as the Finance Ministry approved the deal, provided that no budget funds would be used. That is when the idea to exchange assets emerged. The Comstar share in Svyazinvest was appraised at 23 billion roubles by Ernst & Young. Yesterday, Svyazinvest's executive manager Yevgeny Yurchenko called the appraisal "absolutely fair" (Interfax). Sistema estimates its share in Svyazinvest at 37.7 billion roubles - the debt to Sberbank plus the value of the 28% of MGTS stocks (11.7 billion roubles).
