Alisher Usmanov will become the owner of the largest stake in Megafon

Danish lawyer Jeffrey Galmond sells 8% Megaphone and 58.9% of telecominvest, Alisher Usmanov, as a result of which Usmanov will receive control of 39.3% in Megaphone, and will increase the effective share to 31.1%, the newspaper Vedomosti writes.

The completion of the transaction was due to the settlement of all disputes around the IPOC assets, the representative of Af Telecom told the newspaper. Disputes began after in the summer of 2003 LV Finance Leonid Rozheskina sold 25.1% of Megafon, which eventually went to Alfa Group. IPOC protested this deal in the courts of different countries: the fund claimed that it had options for the purchase of these shares. In May 2006, the Curich arbitration refused IPOC to most part of the disputed package, indicating that IPOC tried to pay these shares with money received as a result of laundering.

Galmond calls himself the owner of the IPOC fund and sells shares under its control. On May 7, the Supreme Court of the Bermuda Islands satisfied the requirement of the local Ministry of Finance to liquidate the IPOC and eight affiliated companies on charges of money laundering.

Initially, the Ministry of Finance insisted on the liquidation of the fund with the confiscation of its property, but the court decided to distribute the IPOC property between its owners. A close to Galmond, the source of the publication claims that another contender for IPOC property Leonid Rozheskin refused the requirements. The representative of Rozhetskin could not comment on this (the entrepreneur himself disappeared in Latvia in mid -March, the police suspect the murder).

The latest documents on the Galmond transaction and the Af Telecom company belonging to Usmanov signed on May 7 - on the day of the verdict of the court. The company’s full owner in Megafon will become Usmanov’s company after the liquidation of IPOC - after 3-4 months, the representative of Af Telecom believes. Galmond himself did not confirm and did not refute the fact of sale.

The parties do not call the amount of the transaction. All MegaFon by various specialists is estimated from $ 20 to $ 27 billion. So 26.4% could cost Usmanov $ 5.3-7.1 billion. The representative of one of the parties to the transaction admitted to the newspaper that the price is closer to the lower border.

As a representative of Af Telecom told the publication, in the future the company intends to increase the share in Megafon. This can be done by redeeming Altimo: its general director Alexei Reznikovich in March admitted The Wall Street Journal that the company is ready to sell Megaphone. True, another shareholder of Megafon, Swedish -Finnish Teliasonera, can also claim Altimo. At the same time, the representative of Altimo told the newspaper that the company still has no plans to sell 25.1% of MegaFon.