Kazakhstan's dominant landline operator KazakhTelecom has announced plans to sell its 51% stake in its mobile phone network subsidiary Mobile Telecom Service. KazakhTelecom has appointed RBS Corporate Finance as its financial adviser and is seeking outside investors to take the stake.

KazakhTelecom also owns a 49% stake in GSM Kazakhstan (Kcell), which is a far larger mobile network operator, in terms of subscriber base.

The company said that the sale was inline with its strategy and asset restructuring program approved by its Board of Directors and aimed at "consolidation of its businesses and optimised use of its resources."

Mobile Telecom-Service started offering mobile telecom services to end users under the Neo brand, after it was granted a GSM licence in 2007. On January 29, 2007 the Company sold 49% of its share in Mobile Telecom-Service to AsiaNet Kazakhstan for KZT 1,295,578 thousand (USD8.7 million)

Neo is the smallest of the country's three GSM networks, and estimates from the Mobile World put its subscriber base at around 1.25 million at the end of Q1 '09. This represented a market share of 8.1%. The two other operators are Kazakhstan-Rumeli Telecom, controlled by Russia's Vimpelcom and GSM Kazakhstan (Kcell), which is controlled by TeliaSonera's Fintur Holding.

source: cellular-news.com