Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- OAO VimpelCom, Russia's second- largest mobile-phone company, agreed to purchase Golden Telecom Inc. for about $4.3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing a person familiar with the transaction.

The purchase for $105 a share may be announced later today, the newspaper reported. The price is in line with the offer VimpelCom and Golden Telecom announced earlier this month.

Alexander Boreyko, an official at VimpelCom's investor relations department, and Alexey Subbotin, Golden Telecom's investor relations head, did not answer calls to their office telephones after working hours.

The acquisition would create Russia's first integrated mobile and fixed-line provider. VimpelCom, which had more than 61 million subscribers at the end of October in Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia, plans to expand into more markets and services such as broadband Internet.

Golden Telecom said on Nov. 8 it had 394,900 broadband subscribers in Russia and plans to become the leading high-speed Internet provider in the nation and in other former Soviet countries.

Golden Telecom has said it would spend more than $1 billion expanding fiber-optic networks to cover 65 Russian cities with a total population of 65 million. The broadband Internet provider, which also operates in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, said Nov. 8 that its third-quarter profit more than tripled to $74.4 million on sales of $350.4 million.

Moscow-based VimpelCom's shares rose 4.4 percent to $39.38 in New York yesterday. Golden Telecom, also based in Moscow, declined 0.2 percent to $100.06 in trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange yesterday.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Lee in Hong Kong at wlee37@bloomberg.net; Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 20, 2007 20:59 EST