OREANDA-NEWS. June 24, 2010. “COMSTAR – United TeleSystems” JSC (“Comstar” or “the Company”) (LSE: CMST), the largest integrated telecommunications provider in Moscow and 82 Russian cities, announced that it has increased its stake in the share capital of JSC Regional Technical Centre (“RTC”) to 96.24% of the common shares, from the previous level of 86.21%. RTC is the leading alternative regional fixed-line telecommunications operator in the Siberia region and is part of the Comstar-UTS Group of companies.

The 10.03% stake in RTC was acquired within the framework of a voluntary tender offer made by Comstar to the minority shareholders of RTC, for a total cash consideration of approximately RUB 88.5 million.

The transaction is part of the restructuring of Comstar’s regional group of companies under the umbrella of Comstar-Regions, which was created in August 2009 through the merger of the Group’s largest subsidiaries. Comstar-Regions is now the sole centre for the consolidation of the Group’s regional assets, which include the branches in the Central, North-West, Southern, Volga, Ural and Siberian Federal Districts. All of the Group’s regional subsidiaries will eventually be merged into Comstar-Regions.

Viktor Koresh, General Director of Comstar-Regions commented: “Comstar plans to continue to acquire shares in RTC from minority shareholders going forward. A unified regional company will allow Comstar to manage its regional assets in a more efficient manner, as well as to engage in the integration with MTS and implement single convergent solutions for all of our assets. We continue to work towards merging our regional assets under the Comstar-Regions umbrella.”

Regional Technical Centre is the leading alternative operator in the Tyumen region. RTS provides a wide range of services, including digital telephony, zonal, intercity and international communication (as an agent of Comstar-UTS), internet access, and leases channels to subscribers in Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Areas, south of Tyumen region (Tyumen and Tobolsk) and Orenburg region. RTC had more than 38,600 residential subscribers and more than 8,000 corporate clients as at the end of 2009. The company was founded in 2001 as a part of CJSC “Production and Technical Department of Communications”. In November 2007, Comstar acquired a controlling stake in RTC and the company was integrated into JSC Tyumenneftegazsvyaz, a subsidiary of Comstar-UTS, in December 2008. RTC reported revenues of RUB 1.4 billion and a net income of RUB 236.6 million for the full year 2009.