company controlled by the richest man in Russia is the world's largest in New York Facebook lists

MegaFon, the second largest mobile operator Russian, requesting approval for a float of £ 2.5 billion in London, the largest in the world since Facebook listed in New York in May.

The richest man

Russian Alisher Usmanov, who took over the company in April, it was reported that the local regulator has requested authorization for the IPO, which could be launched within three to four weeks.

This would give investors the opportunity to buy into a company that is positioned to actively deployment of broadband mobile data beloved smartphone toting Russians in urban areas, and is backed by the Kremlin impeccable connections Usmanov, a shareholder of Arsenal FC, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at $ 18.1bn (EUR 11.4 billion).

Russia is one of the most active markets in the mobile world, with penetration third in the world after the United Arab Emirates and Panama. Country's 227m mobile subscriptions cover more than 150% of the population, as almost all of the 144 million people own a mobile phone, with many more homeowners SIM card. Megafon has 63m subscribers.

MegaFon has requested authorization from the regulator of financial markets from Russia to list a maximum of 123,000,000 shares abroad, equivalent to 19.9% ??of society, according to Reuters. "We are studying the possibility of an initial public offering," MegaFon said in response to questions from the news agency. "The timing of the public offering will depend on market conditions."

Float Teliasonera, the Swedish company to reduce its stake in Megafon to 25.1%.

in Russia between the three major networks - MTS, Vimpelcom and Megafon - MTS with approximately 70 million subscribers and 56 million VimpelCom. Five other subscriptions networks are about 38m between them.

Investors are willing to buy a slice of the fast-growing company, according to analysts, is presented as the mobile operators vying for a place in the race to sell 4G (fourth generation) services phones in public.

In July, Usmanov has increased its influence in the Russian telecom combining their MegaFon stake in a holding company that will own control was supported by the operator Scartel next generation.

MegaFon same month, was one of four companies to win a 4G license, allowing it to offer a high-speed wireless Internet using LTE, which is called become the industry standard worldwide. In May, the network was used Scartel launched LTE services in Moscow.

"MegaFon seems interesting because it is the leader in the mobile Internet market in Russia," said Sergei Libin, Moscow-based analyst at Raiffeisen.

would be the largest IPO of a Russian bank VTB has raised public $ 8 billion in 2007. OPI Russian notables 2.2 billion list Rusal aluminum group include Hong Kong in 2010 and 1.4 billion Internet search engine Yandex float U.S. stock market Nasdaq in May 2011.

waiting in the wings is Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia after the prognosis, beating quarterly results last week raised the possibility that often delayed the sale of a holding of State 7.6% worth $ 5 billion would be made.

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