Russia's SMARTS Decides Not to Become Open Joint Stock Co

MOSCOW, Oct 27 (Prime-Tass) -- An extraordinary general meeting of shareholders (EGM) of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS has cancelled a decision made earlier to transform the company into an open joint stock company from a closed joint stock company, SMARTS said Friday.

The company's General Director Andrei Girev told Prime-Tass that shareholders decided to cancel the earlier-made decision because the company does not plan to hold an initial public offering (IPO) for the time being.

The decision to change the legal form of the company was made in October 2005, when the company planned to offer its shares on a stock market. However, in the last twelve months SMARTS has been hit by a legal attack from Sigma investment group and has found itself embroiled in numerous court cases.

SMARTS has not transformed itself into open joint stock company because one of the court decisions bans any changes to the company's legal form.

SMARTS, or Middle-Volga Interregional Association of Radio and Telecommunication Systems, operates 10 branches in nine regions. SMARTS group of companies operates a GSM 900/1800 standard network in 16 Russian regions, where 33.9 million people live, or 24% of the Russian population.

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Posted to the site on 27th October 2006