Azerbaijan, Baku, 16 January / Trend corr I. Khalilova / The state-owned stake in the Azercell Telecom JV, founded by the Azerbaijani Communications and IT Ministry, is approximately appraised at $170-190mln, Karam Hasanov, the chair of the State Committee on State Property Management said on 16 January. According to Hasanov, the state-owned stake will be specified after the completion of re-appraisal by a consultant.
The appraisal of the state stake in the Azercell Telecom JV is coming to its end, Hasanov said.
This process has been delayed, due to the appraisal being held once more after a new consultant - a consortium of the companies - CA IB Corporate Finance Beratungs GmbH and Ernst.
Notably, Azercell Telecom was established by Azertel Company and the Azerbaijan Telecommunication Ministry in 1996, with the state shares comprising 51 % of the total.
Azertel (85% of which belongs to Fintur Holding BV, which also belongs to the Turkey's largest mobile provider - Turkcell) comes out with the foreign founder of the Joint-Stock Company. At the same time, 41.45 % of the sharing in the Fintur Holding BV belongs to Turkcell. The rest of the 58.55 % belongs to Finland's Teliasonera, which is the founder of Turkcell. Fintur is the founder of mobile communication operators in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Moldova. Azercell Telecom, with over 2.3mln subscribers and covering 78 % of the cell market of the country and 99 % of the population of the country, is the main company and its investments have exceeded $0.5bln, making it one of the largest companies in Azerbaijan's non-oil sector.