Alfa Group Expects Telsim Sale Price To Be Too High-Executive

MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- The head of Alfa Group's telecommunications branch, Altimo, said Wednesday he expects the sale price of Turkey's Telsim Mobil Telekomunikasyon to be too high.

"There are too many competitors, which means that the bids will be very high," Altimo Chief Executive Alexi Reznikovich told journalists. "I'm not sure that it makes sense to buy that asset for that kind of money."

Reznikovich said the large number of cash-rich participants in the forthcoming tender will drive the price of the stake sky-high.

Seven companies that submitted bids for 100% of Telsim, including U.K.'s Vodafone Group PLC and Russia's largest cellular operator OAO Mobile TeleSystems.

Alfa, which bought a 13% stake in Turkish Mobile Phone operator Turkcell in November, isn't among bidders for Telsim bidders.

The reserve price is $2.8 billion and Telsim's general manager Muzaffer Akpinar said earlier that he expected the purchase price to be around $4 billion.

The Turkish government is expected to pick a winner in the tender by the second half of December.

Company Web site: http://www.altimo.ru

-By Anna Ivanova-Galitsina, Dow Jones Newswires; +7 095 974 80 55; anna.galitsina@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 7th December 2005