Azercell becomes wholly-owned by Fintur

Azerbaijan's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) has sold its 35.7% stake in leading cellco Azercell to Fintur Holdings, which already owned the other 64.3%. Fintur is a joint venture between TeliaSonera (58.55%) and Turkcell (41.45%). The State Property Committee has not disclosed the value of the deal, but said that auditors Ernst & Young had earlier valued the stake at USD180 million. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Azercell’s network is available to around 99% of Azeris. At the end of 2007 it had over three million subscribers, giving it over two-thirds of the mobile market.