OREANDA-NEWS. November 11, 2010. Three companies expressed interest in Ukrtelekom, the largest land-line operator in Ukraine, the chairman of the State Property Fund (SPF) claimed Nov 10. Two of them are from Ukraine and Russia, while the third one is from beyond the CIS region (no more details have been available to date).

Millennium Capital regard the news as POSITIVE for UTLM. It is possible that the third bidder (in addition to SCM and AFK Sistema) that meets the restrictions set by SPF may find the financial support of EBRD which announced it was ready to finance bids for Ukrtelecom. Although Millennium Capital still regards AFK Sistema as the most likely winner, Millennium Capital does not exclude a possibility that the presence of the third contender may improve the pricing process at the auction which may result in pushing up the acquisition price for Sistema.