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Euroset Stocks Change Owner
Russia’s key cellular retailer, Euroset, is buying back 7.53 percent of its stocks from Uralsib in the deal valued at $80 million to $85 million and which completion is expected in half a year. The analysts say Euroset lacks money to pay for the stake, so it may find a new buyer for stocks, for instance, a bank committed to arrange the IPO of the company.
Past week, Euroset transferred to Uralsib the first installment of $10 million in settlement for 7.53 percent of preferred stocks of Dutch Euroset Holding, said a source familiar with the deal.
Euroset Holding owns all assets of Euroset and the payments are due to be made during six to eight months with the overall amount fetching $80 million to $85 million. The deal is carried out under the option agreement of 2005 that provides for the back purchase of stocks.
The 7.53 percent in Euroset Holding went to Uralsib to clear the $50 million loan granted in early 2005, Uralsib said in March.
Neither Euroset nor Uralsib declined or confirmed the information yesterday. But the market players never doubt the deal will be completed, stemming their assuredness in the fact that Euroset put off the IPO from the end of this year. Exactly this shelving might have prompted Uralsib to return the stake.
Euroset is the biggest chain of retail stores of Russia and CIS trading in mobile phones. It posted the 2005 sales of around $2 billion and had the EBITDA of $105 million and the net profit of $62.2 million. The debt of Euroset amounted to $240 million as of May 22. Euroset is 100-percent owned by Dutch Euroset Holding, which belongs to Yevgeny Chichvarkin and Timur Artemyev.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 28, 2006
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