Mobile TeleSystems Announces Financial Results for the Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2010
MOSCOW, November 18, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mobile TeleSystems OJSC ("MTS" -NYSE: MBT), the leading telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS, today announces its unaudited US GAAP financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2010.
Key Financial Highlights of Q3 2010[1]
- Consolidated revenues up 10.8% y-o-y to $2,911 million
- Consolidated OIBDA[2] up 8.2% y-o-y to $1,309 million with a
45.0% OIBDA margin
- Consolidated net income attributable to the Group of $475
million
- Free cash-flow[3] increased in Q3 2010 and reached $2.4
billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2010
Key Corporate and Industry Highlights
- Acquisition of a 95% stake in Metro-Telecom for RUB 339.35
million ($11.01 million[4])
- Acquisition of Multiregion, one of the leading groups of
broadband and cable TV providers in Russia, for $123.5 million
- Decrease in the interest rates on Gazprombank's RUB 6.46
billion facility and on Sberbank's RUB 53 billion facilities
- Completion of a series of transactions involving the sale by
the Comstar group of companies to Rostelecom of the 25%+1 share in the
charter capital of Svyazinvest for RUB 26 billion
- Successful completion of voluntary tender offer to the
Comstar shareholders resulting in the acquisition of 37,614,087
ordinary Comstar shares, or approximately 9.0% of Comstar's issued
share capital
- LTE launch in Uzbekistan - first commercial network in the CIS
- Outlook upgrade of the S&P credit rating from Stable to
Positive
- Affirmation of the Fitch credit rating at BB+/Outlook Stable
- Voluntarily repayment of the second tranche of the
syndicated loan in the amount of $161.5 million; the loan was
originally signed in April 2006 and carried a 5-year maturity
- Redemption of the $400 million Eurobond in October 2010
- Placement of the series 07 and series 08 ruble-denominated
bonds totaling RUB 25 billion
- Transfer of MTS ordinary share to the "A1" listing on the
Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX)
- Completion of 3G deployment throughout markets of operation
with 3G launch in Turkmenistan
- Signing of a non-binding indicative offer to acquire for RUB
11.59 billion ($379.01 million[5]) Sistema-Telecom, whose primary
assets include the distinctive 'egg' trademarks used by MTS and its
subsidiaries
Commentary
Mikhail Shamolin, President and CEO of MTS, commented, "For the period, we delivered strong sequential and annual growth in all of our markets of operation. During the quarter we improved Group's revenue 10.8%% year over year to $2.9 billion dollars. We attribute this growth to the positive seasonal dynamics, subscriber additions and a general increase in usage in our core markets."
Alexey Kornya, MTS Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, said, "We have been very successful in our efforts aimed at optimizing our debt portfolio. We reached an agreement to lower interest rates on our Sberbank facilities in the total amount of 53 billion rubles. In line with our preference for ruble denominated debt, we voluntarily repaid the second - and last - tranche of our outstanding syndicated loan in the amount of $161.5 million; the loan was originally signed in April 2006 and carried a 5-year maturity. At the end of the period, non-ruble debt accounted for roughly 37% of our debt portfolio, but this should decrease by the end of the year."
Mr. Kornya added, "In October we completed the redemption of a $400 million Eurobond. Just recently, we tapped local debt markets placing series-07 and series-08 ruble-denominated bonds - a 5-year 15 billion RUB issue with a coupon of 8.15% and a 7-year 10 billion RUB issue with a coupon of 8.7%. This makes us the first Russian corporate to solicit 7-year money from the market, which is a strong statement on our financial position given the volatility we are now seeing in global capital markets."
Continued Mr. Shamolin, "As you are aware, we are moving forward with the acquisition of Comstar that creates the largest integrated telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS. As a part of the process, we launched a voluntary tender offer (VTO) to Comstar shareholders for up to 9.0% of Comstar's issued share capital. The VTO was successful, which allowed us to increase our ownership stake in Comstar to 70.97% of Comstar's issued share capital (or 73.33% excluding treasury shares). The merger process is expected to be completed by mid-April 2011 subject to the shareholders' approval of the transaction and certain regulatory steps. We will seek the approval from the shareholders of both MTS and Comstar at Extraordinary General Meetings on December 23, 2010."
He continued, "Earlier this week we signed a non-binding indicative offer to acquire 100% of Sistema Telecom LLC. As you may recall, in 2006 Sistema introduced the umbrella brand to link its telecommunications assets in the eyes of their customers. In the years since, however, the market has undergone significant changes that saw ownership of many of these key assets shift to MTS. Today, we are truly operating under a unified brand to all of our customers and are continuously extending our brand to different services. Given the prospects we see in our market, we feel it is only logical to acquire full control of our logos and trademarks to ensure that all shareholders benefit equally in the brand's further development as we continue to implement our "3i" strategy."
This press release provides a summary of some of the key financial and operating indicators for the period ended September 30, 2010. For full disclosure materials, please visit http://www.mtsgsm.com/resources/reports/.
Learn more about MTS. Visit the official blog of the Investor Relations Department at http://www.mtsgsm.com/blog/
Mobile TeleSystems OJSC ("MTS") is the leading telecommunications group in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, offering mobile and fixed voice, broadband, pay TV as well as content and entertainment services in one of the world's fastest growing regions. Including its subsidiaries, the Group services over 105.2 million mobile subscribers in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia and Belarus, a region that boasts a total population of more than 230 million. Since June 2000, MTS' Level 3 ADRs have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol MBT). Additional information about the MTS Group can be found at http://www.mtsgsm.com.
Some of the information in this press release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of MTS, as defined in the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward looking statements by terms such as "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "will," "could," "may" or "might," and the negative of such terms or other similar expressions. We wish to caution you that these statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We do not undertake or intend to update these statements to reflect events and circumstances occurring after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. We refer you to the documents MTS files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the Company's most recent Form 20-F. These documents contain and identify important factors, including those contained in the section captioned "Risk Factors" that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements, including, among others, the severity and duration of current economic and financial conditions, including volatility in interest and exchange rates, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial assets; the impact of Russian, U.S. and other foreign government programs to restore liquidity and stimulate national and global economies, our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so, strategic actions, including acquisitions and dispositions and our success in integrating acquired businesses, including Comstar-UTS, potential fluctuations in quarterly results, our competitive environment, dependence on new service development and tariff structures, rapid technological and market change, acquisition strategy, risks associated with telecommunications infrastructure, governmental regulation of the telecommunications industries and other risks associated with operating in Russia and the CIS, volatility of stock price, financial risk management and future growth subject to risks.
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[1] Because Comstar-UTS, TS-Retail and Metro-Telecom were acquired from
JSC Sistema, the majority owner of MTS, Comstar, TS-Retail and
Metro-Telecom, the acquisitions were accounted for as transactions
between entities under common control. Similar to a pooling of
interest, whereby the assets and liabilities of Comstar-UTS,
TS-Retail and Metro-Telecom were recorded at Sistema's carrying
value, MTS' historical financial information was recast to include
the acquired entities for all periods presented
[2] See Attachment A for definitions and reconciliation of OIBDA and
OIBDA margin to their most directly comparable US GAAP financial
measures
[3] See Attachment B for reconciliation of free cash-flow to net cash
provided by operating activity
[4] According to the Russian Central Bank exchange rate of 30.8227
RUB/USD as of August 27, 2010
[5] According to the average exchange rate of 30.57 RUB/USD for the
60-day period from September 4, 2010 to November 4, 2010
SOURCE Mobile TeleSystems OJSC
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