Russia’s VimpelCom to acquire WIND Telecom for $6 billion

By on Mar 17, 2011 at 2:51 PM
mobile March 17, 2011

WIND Telecom SpA announced on Thursday that the shareholders of Russian mobile operator VimpelCom have voted to approve the acquisition of WIND Telecom for $6 billion. VimpelCom said regulators approved the acquisition as well. The deal covers all of WIND Telecom’s assets, which includes Orascom Telecom, a major WIND Mobile shareholder, and VimpelCom will add nine new markets including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Italy and Canada to the eleven it already covers. When finalized, the purchase will make VimpelCom the world’s fifth largest mobile Teleco with more than 173 million subscribers. “This is great news for us. Our partner, Orascom, will be even larger and stronger as a financial partner. This gives us more leverage and increased scale with telecom network equipment manufacturers and more importantly, for devices including handsets and tablets,” said Anthony Lacavera, WIND Mobile’s chairman, adding that the purchase will give WIND more access to long distance roaming services. Lacavera said he would provide more information as new details on the acquisition emerge.

Thanks, Kelvin

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12 Comments

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  • Anonymous

    wasn’t the big fuss about Wind in Canada was that they were supposed to be mostly Canadian owned to be able to operate in Canada. this helps them stay how?/

    • http://twitter.com/brianMedeiros Brian M

      no one said it would help. at least not customers

  • sirpaul

    I hope customer service and low prices don’t change. Not that I’d switch to Wind – the phones are all incompatible with those of other carriers – but at least they bring some competition.

  • Anonymous

    Oh, expect the CRTC, Rogers, Bell, and Telus to be all over this.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GP2WYAHXS6CRUREISWBGPUSUGE Michael

    In Soviet Russia phones buy you.

    sorry bad joke.

  • Canook

    You should update this story to make it more factual.

    • http://twitter.com/mike101089 mike salama

      I don’t know why they let these people write whatever the hell they want…makes me doubt credibility of this site on everything

      • Anonymous

        care to point out where this story lacks fact?

      • Moe

        btw the Tile is REALLY misleading too.

  • Moe

    BGR: its Wind SpA what belongs to Vimpelcom, no wind mobile Canada (their debt is the one part pf the deal only) as it is own by Globalive not Orascom

  • Roccostiffreddi

    This is great news for us. Our partner, Orascom, will be even larger and stronger as a financial partner.

    according to reuters this deal puts Vimpelcom in debt the tune of 20 billion. How does jabroni think that makes sense?

  • Go_Mobilicity_Go

    I think this is great news for Canadians as I hope this will fuel more competition against the Big 3 Mobile Operators in Canada, namely Hellus, Robbers, and Bull. However, I do wish Mobilicity eventually acquires more investors to help better their network and phone line up.

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