Turkcell this week confirmed it will make an offer for Fintur, the business through which TeliaSonera controls telecoms assets in four Eurasian markets.
The Turkish mobile operator made a formal statement to that effect on Wednesday, but did not provide any further details. It has given no indication as to the size of its offer.
As it stands, Turkcell holds 41.45% of Fintur. The remaining 58.55% is in the hands of TeliaSonera, which consolidates the results of Fintur’s mobile operator subsidiaries in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Moldova with its own.
In September TeliaSonera announced that it plans to exit its Eurasian operations on a market-by-market basis with a view to focusing on its domestic and wider European businesses. In addition to the Fintur operations, the Swedish telco’s Eurasia arm also includes businesses in Nepal, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Turkcell immediately announced that it was considering its options with regard to a possible acquisition of Fintur.
On Wednesday it revealed that its "board of directors decided to provide a non-binding indicative offer for [TeliaSonera’s] 58.55% stake…in Fintur Holdings."
Reports on the newswires suggest that Turkcell could face some competition though.
Reuters quoted a TeliaSonera spokesperson as saying that Turkcell is not the only company to ha ve expressed interest in Fintur.
"Since we announced this a little more than two months ago, we have seen a big interest for our businesses in Eurasia, including the four Fintur countries," he added.
Eurasia is proving particularly troublesome for TeliaSonera at present, due to allegations of corruption at various businesses in the region.
The telco has been under U.S. investigation in Uzbekistan since March 2014, and earlier this week it emerged that the probe could be extended to other markets, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Nepal being the main contenders.
Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet quoted Danske Bank analysts as saying that the cost to TeliaSonera could be in the region of 15 billion kronor (€1.6 billion).
