Media: Mexican businessman considers buying one of the largest Ukrainian telecommunication providers
Ukrainian telecommunication provider and TV cable operator Volia is negotiating its sale for $112 million. A potential buyer is a Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, as reported by LIGA.net citing the sources in the telecom market.
Carlos Slim is an owner of America Movil. In 2014 he purchased shares of the Austria Telekom group of companies. Its assets include a number of European operators, including Velcom in Belarus. The latter, according to the news website, started conducting due diligence of Volia.
Volia operator serves about 2 million subscribers of cable TV and internet in 34 cities of Ukraine. 670 000 people use its internet (the company is in the TOP-3 of Ukrainian internet-providers). The main shareholders of the company — Providence Equity Partners (34.92%), Sigma Bleyzer (15.3%) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (11.7%) foundations.
The first rumors about the purchase of the Ukrainian internet provider appeared at the end of March. Representatives of Volia did not comment on the information then.
Shareholders of Volia started looking for a buyer last year. New owner should have appeared before the end of December, there were investment fund of Borys Lozhkin and mobile telephone network operator lifecell among potential buyers. There was no official confirmation of the information.