MegaFon announced plans to buy a stake in Usmanov Mail.Ru Group – RBC

Photo: Ekaterina Kuzmina/RBC

For 63.8% of the Mail.Ru Group MegaFon intends to pay to its shareholder group USM Alisher Usmanov $ 740 million Extraordinary meeting of shareholders will consider the issue of buying 20 Jan

on Friday, December 23, the Board of Directors of the company approved the convening of an extraordinary shareholders meeting on 20 January 2017 to approve the transaction on purchase of shares Mail.Ru Group. The operator is preparing to acquire 15.2% of the share capital of the Internet holding company that correspond to voting share of 63.8%, stated in received by RBC press release of the cellular operator.

the Shares will be redeemed from within the group USM Alisher Usmanov’s companies in the New Media and Technology Investment LP, New Media Technologies Capital Partners Limited and Ardoe Finance Limited. At the time of the closing of the transaction, they will receive $ 640 million, and a $ 100 million Financial advisors to the transaction are Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, legal Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and White & Case.

Capitalization Mail.ru on the London stock exchange is $ 3,96 billion, “Megaphone” — $ 5.58 billion

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At the end of the third quarter “the Megaphone” served 75.5 million subscribers in Russia. Sites Mail.Ru (which owns the eponymous Internet portal and email service, social networks “Vkontakte”, “Classmates” and “My peace,” messenger “Agent Mail.Ru” and ICQ) were monthly visited by about 93% of Russian Internet users, according to comScore in June of this year.

USM owns 56,32% of the shares of “MegaFon”. The rest of the shareholders of the company: Company Telia Group (25,17%) owned by the operator Megafon Investments (3,92%), free float (14,59%). Since the USM control “MegaFon” and Mail.ru for her it’s a deal with the interest, that is, it should not participate in the vote. Therefore, for the approval of the transaction will require the support Telia.

Owners of voting shares Mail.Ru Group, in addition to the USM, is a South African media company Naspers, through MIH (12.5%) and Chinese Tencent (3,3%), other of 20.4%.

Mail.Ru later issued a statement which confirmed that it agreed with the “Megaphone” of the bargain. The report notes that the agreement had been approved “by all disinterested Directors” of the company.

the Deal will also have to coordinate with the Federal Antimonopoly service. As noted in the message of “MegaFon”, the acquisition of shares in Mail.Ru Group “aimed at obtaining significant synergy effects for both companies”, including diversification and marketing digital services for the operator and the start of a special offer VKmobile for users of the social network “Vkontakte”. In Mail.Ru expect that the transaction will allow the companies to cooperate in the field of data analysis. “The agreement will be beneficial for both parties: for Mail.Ru Group — technologies for targeting advertising, and for “MegaFon” — for a more effective sale of telecommunications services,” — said in a press release from the Internet company.

After completing the transaction, MegaFon and Mail.Ru Group will continue to operate fully on market terms. The management team of both companies will be independent and “is aimed at maintaining the current corporate culture and corporate governance of each company”.

for the First time about negotiations between MegaFon and Mail.ru it became known in mid-November. Then both messages on the London stock exchange warned investors that conduct such discussions.