East-West Digital News 15 Mar 2012
The Russian mobile operator MTS is considering selling a stake of its online paid video subsidiary Omlet.ru, the operator’s VP of Marketing Vasily Latsanich announced earlier this week at a press conference. “The content business should be separated from the operator business, and we are not the only ones on the market to believe so,” the Russian online business publication CNews.ru quoted him as saying.
“We are considering selling a stake in this asset in order to make it more market oriented. A content business cannot eternally parasitize a mobile operator,” he added, without mentioning the size of the stake being considered for sale.
The online video subsidiary, could still remain within AFK Sistema, a diversified conglomerate and MTS’s parent company, with Sistema Mass Media potentially buying the stake in Omlet.ru. “We don’t want to lose control over this company,” Latsanich said a few months ago, according to CNews.ru. Latsanich, however, did not discuss these aspects during the recent press conference.