MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman Monday expressed rare support for Alfa Group in their drive to expand overseas, on the sidelines of an investor conference.
When asked to comment on the ambitions of Alfa's telecommunications arm Altimo to become a global player, Reiman said: "It is important to support Russian companies so they can compete with the global giants.
"In the telecoms industry, companies shouldn't limit themselves to just one country," Reiman said.
Reiman is at the center of a legal battle with the company. Following legal proceedings against him by Alfa, a Swiss Tribunal ruled Reiman is the beneficiary owner of IPOC International Growth Fund, a money-laundering organization. Reiman has repeatedly denied owning IPOC, which is in dispute with Alfa over a stake in MegaFon, the country's third-largest mobile operator.
Alfa owns stakes in Russia's OAO Vimpel Communications and Golden Telecom, Ukraine's Kyivstar, and Turkey's Turkcell, but none of them are majority stakes. It has said it wants to merge its telecoms stakes into one company and continue with international expansion.
Reiman said that "companies' global-scale decisions should coincide with the country's interests and strategy."
During the summer, a top Alfa Group official met with President Vladimir Putin, which was taken by the market as a sign that Alfa is looking for political approval of its expansion strategy.
Norway's Telenor, which is Alfa's partner in VimpelCom, Kyivstar and Golden Telecom had said that it would prefer to merge VimpelCom and Kyivstar and see that joint entity expand internationally.
"It is also in our interest if VimpelCom expands into markets where it is more natural for them, than for us," head of Telenor in Russia Kjell-Morten Johnsen said Monday.
However, he declined to specify which markets. "It is for VimpelCom's management to come up with the strategy, not for us," Johnsen said.
Company Web site: http://www.alfagroup.ru
-By Anna Ivanova-Galitsina, Dow Jones Newswires; +7 495 974 80 55; anna.galitsina@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires"
Posted to the site on 9th October 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/19774.php