TeliaSonera says eyes extra 4.1 pct Turkcell stake
TeliaSonera said on Thursday it was evaluating whether to try to buy a 4.1 percent stake in Turkcell TCELL.IS that media-to-energy conglomerate Cukurova is putting up for sale. Cukurova said in a statement it had mandated JP Morgan to sell the Turkcell shares to international investors. TeliaSonera spokesman Ola Kallemur noted the stake was not big enough to give the firm control of Turkey's largest mobile operator, which has been the Nordic firm's long-term ambition. "It's of course something that we will evaluate, whether we're interested in buying it," Kallemur said. TeliaSonera owns 37 percent of Turkcell, either directly or through Turkcell Holding, which has a controlling 51 percent stake in Turkey's biggest mobile operator. The Swedish operator had agreed to buy a 27 percent stake in Turkcell in 2005 from Cukurova but the conglomerate later sold half of that stake to Altimo, the telecoms arm of Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group. Since then, TeliaSonera has waged a legal battle to try to get hold of as much as possible of the shares it had planned to buy originally. TeliaSonera, the Nordic region's biggest telecom operator, has also sought to gain control of Russian mobile operator Megafon, another company in which it holds a large stake. "What we aim for, for both Turkcell and Megafon, is of course eventual control. This stake that's been flagged for sale now is not of a size that would give us control," Kallemur said. (Editing by David Holmes)
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