OREANDA-NEWS. MegaFon has completed the key processes of the integration of Skartel and Yota, 100% of the shares of which were purchased by the operator in October 2013.

The process of the integration of assets took several months and included the following steps: Skartel and Yota were unified into one legal entity - Skartel LLC for providing services under the Yota brand; all Skartel telecommunications equipment under contract of sale was transferred to the balance sheet of MegaFon, all primary processes of support and service of the Skartel network were switched to MegaFon; and MegaFon and Skartel signed an agreement on the lease of the communications network.

Anna Serebryanikova, MegaFon Director of Legal Affairs and GR headed the integration process. Since December 2013, Oleg Knyazev has been CEO of Skartel, who successfully led the unification of the assets. Following completion of the integration, Anatoliy Smorgonskiy was appointed General Director of Skartel effective April 28, 2014. Oleg Knyazev will continue his career in MegaFon through involvement in other projects.

“We combined the networks of two operators in the interests of customers. MegaFon subscribers got access to higher quality mobile Internet at 4G high speeds and Skartel will be able to develop new services due to the powerful infrastructure of the converged networks. I want to thank all the staff involved in this projec, for their hard and efficient work, which enabled a successful integration of Skartel and Yota according to a strict timeline” - commented Anna Serebryanikova.

September 12, 2013. The Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of MegaFon approved the purchase of a 100% stake in Maxiten Co Limited, which owns 100% of shares in Skartel LLC and Yota LLC.

October 1, 2013. MegaFon closed the acquisition of a 100% stake in Maxiten Co Limited, which owns 100% of shares in Skartel LLC and Yota LLC, from Garsdale Services Investment Limited, the controlling shareholder of MegaFon.

99% of the total shares were purchased directly from Garsdale and 1% - from Kable Global Inc., a 100% subsidiary of Garsdale.

The acquisition of Skartel/Yota will provide leadership of MegaFon on the 4G/LTE market in Russia and will give the company a number of strategic advantages:

MegaFon was provided the opportunity to deploy a 4G/LTE network while reducing capital and operating costs of MB/s by increasing the width of the frequency spectrum.

The transaction will significantly improve the quality and increase the capacity of the MegaFon network, which will allow the two companies to provide their subscribers high-speed mobile Internet in 4G networks.