President Vladimir Putin’s billionaire ally Yury Kovalchuk is buying half of Tele2 Russia Holding AB with partners, seeking to make the wireless carrier a stronger competitor to the country’s three dominant operators.
Kovalchuk’s Bank Rossiya and partners including steelmaking billionaire Alexey Mordashov bought 50 percent of the business from VTB Group, a state-run bank. VTB, which bought the Russian unit of Sweden’s Tele2 AB for $2.4 billion this year, said in its statement today that the selling price for the stake was “in line with expectations.”
