Alfa Loses Battle At KyivStar, Strengthens Position In TurkCell

Telenor announced on Tuesday that Ukraine’s Higher Economic Court had confirmed the legitimacy of KyivStar’s board and charter, overturning a previous ruling in Alfa’s favor that required Telenor to revise the charter. Earlier in the week Alfa and the Turkish Cukurova group teamed up and won a battle against TeliaSonera for control of Turkcell, which controls Ukrainian GSM operator Astelit. Alfa and Cukurova won two seats each on Turkcell’s board and forced the resignation of Turkcell’s CEO. Alexander Paraschiy: Despite the setback at KyivStar, Alfa is continuing its very aggressive strategy and it will surely continue to seek to consolidate its many stakes in mobile operators. Alfa has stakes in four Ukrainian mobile operators: Kyivstar, URS (trough VimpelCom), Astelit/DCC (through Turkcell) and Golden Telecom.