[CVUS and Russia?]
(an old article i stumbed across. what is the equity relationship between CVUS and CT&T? -- mark)
totaltele.com
New York Investors Promise Microwave Boost For Russian Local Loop
By Jeremy Scott-Joynt
05-MAR-97
Americas Partners, a New York investment partnership, says it will raise $1 billion to build microwave wireless local loop systems in Russia. The company claims its newly created Russia Telecom Investors Fund has already secured the cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Telecommunications, Moscow's city government and AO Svyazinvest, the 51% state-owned holding company which controls Russia's 85 regional telecoms operating companies. Unnamed US carriers are also claimed to be involved.
The scheme is being presented as a means to accelerate the reconstruction of Russia's chronically underfunded national telecoms infrastructure, using radical new technology owned by the US company, CellularVision Technology & Telecommunications. CT&T's Local Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS), transmits voice and data at 28GHz frequencies, and was tested New York last year. CT&T says it hopes to commence services in New York if a Federal Communications Commission radio spectrum auction goes ahead.
Morad Tahbaz, a partner in Americas Partners, said the project would be financed via a number of sources, including both the capital and public markets. He said that licenses had been granted across Russia for both telephony and television.
"The fund was created with a particular venture, a different venture in mind, which we decided not to proceed with," he said. "Then it kind of expanded to include all arms of telecoms. It's as expansive as we want it to be."
After examining the Russian market, Americas Partners decided to go ahead "because the sense was that the market timing was as good as it was ever going to be. It's not too often that you can create the partnerships with both the government and the companies which control the telecoms industry." said Tahbaz.
But the deal might still face significant problems, according to Dr. Alexander Kazbegi, equities analyst with Salomon Brothers in London. "I doubt it would be easy to raise that kind of money. I don't think it's a place for a $1 billion direct investment."
Russian telecoms companies were hardly under the thumb of Svyazinvest, he warned, describing the project as "a plausible but unrealistic" approach. "Svyazinvest has little control over its 85 subsidiaries, and ultimately they'll have to convince each of the local service providers. And they don't have smooth and nice relations with Svyazinvest." |
