North-West GSM (merged with MegaFon)

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Closed joint stock company North-West GSM based in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia, is the third largest cellular operator in Russia. The company North-West GSM, founded in 1993, was awarded 10-year license to provide GSM-900 services in six federal regions of Russia: the city of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast (1994), Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, the Republic of Karelia (November 1995), and Vologda Oblast (1997). The company paid a total license fee of US$41 million. North-West GSM launched its commercial services in December 1995 and was operational in its six regions by 1998. North-West GSM, a joint-venture between the leading Russian and international telecommunications - Russian Telecominvest holding (31%), Russian partially privatized Lensyvaz (14%), Finnish Sonera Corporation (24%), Swedish Telia AB (13%), Norwegian Telenor AS (13%), and two Russian consulting companies holding the balance. The company bought Northwest DCS, a 50-50 joint venture between Telecominvest and Compuls Holding for US$10 million. There were over 200 base stations operating. The company invested $95 million in infrastructure by 1998. North-West GSM received a $40 million EBRD loan facility in 1998 (US$ 27.5 million in direct loans; US$ 12.5 million in syndication); in addition, the EBRD has a bond investment of US$ 0.4 million, which represents a virtual 6% of the company's current ordinary stock at par (6% of the economic rights). The company had above 130,000 subscribers by December 1999 (63% local market share). The company invested US$ 20 million in 1999. In May 2002 North-West GSM company merged with 8 regional operators in the process of establishment of the nationwide GSM operator MegaFon. North-West GSM, the oldest subsidiary of Telecominvest, was the basic company around which consolidation occurred. In spring 2002 North-West GSM bought shares in Sonic Duo (100%), Mobicom-Kavkaz (74.5%), Mobicom-Tsentr (100%), Mobicom-Novosibirsk (51%), Mobicom-Khabarovsk (51%), Mobicom-Kirov (100%), MSS-Povolzhye (100%), Volzhsky GSM (80%) and Uralsky GSM (100%). As a result of the name and the legal form of North-West GSM was changed and it was incorporated into the company MegaFon. As a result of rebuilding the company's share capital, Telecominvest held 31.3% of shares of the company, Sonera – 26%, CT-Mobile - 25.1%, Telia - 8.1%, IPOC Fund - 6.5% and minority shareholders – 3%. The Megafon license area covers 68 Russian regions, where 80% of the population is concentrated, or 122 million people. Overall spending on the Megafon project to create a national GSM cellular operator was estimated $600 million by 2005. http://www.megafon.ru From 2002 see - Megafon