Russia's largest telecom operator MTS intends to sell its tower business to an independent operator. "Active negotiations" are already underway, the closing of the deal is expected in the first half of 2022, said the president of MTS Vyacheslav Nikolaev.

Now the allocation of the relevant infrastructure in a separate company, Tower Infrastructure Company, continues.

“We have been doing this business for a long time as a telecommunications legacy. Once it made sense and worked well. Now we have other priorities,” Nikolayev explained.

MTS does not disclose potential buyers, but, according to Kommersant's sources, there are two main contenders for this asset: Service-Telecom and Kismet Capital Group.

MTS plans to conduct an auction among buyers this year. The operator's tower portfolio is estimated at $1.2-1.3 billion (90-100 billion rubles). According to Nikolayev, now the MTS portfolio includes around 23 thousand antenna mast structures, being largest on the market.

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Vyacheslav Nikolaev, President of MTS

In October 2021, MTS has spun off its Tower Infrastructure Company. Earlier, the decision to sell its tower assets was made by Beeline, followed by Megafon's deal to separate its tower assets.

Original (in Russian)