The owners of Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS may sell more than 95% in the company in January 2007, SMARTS’ General Director Andrei Girev said, Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday.

Girev provided neither the name of the possible buyer nor the value of the deal. The daily suggested that the stake could be sold for US$650 million to $750 million.

He added that the shareholders had received one offer that was more attractive than other offers, the daily reported.

SMARTS owners are its Chairman Gennady Kiryushin, who controls directly and indirectly over 80%, the company’s board of directors’ member Boris Skvortsov with 15% and telecommunications operator VolgaTelecom with about 3%.

SMARTS’ owners have been looking to sell their stakes in the operator since 2005, but their plans were interrupted by investment company Sigma, which started a legal attack against the company seeking to get a blocking stake. Following a number of court cases, SMARTS shares have been frozen for several times. The company expects the shares to be completely unfrozen in early 2007.

SMARTS, or Middle-Volga Interregional Association of Radio and Telecommunication Systems, operates a GSM 900/1800 standard network in 16 regions of Russia. The company had 3.584 million users as of October 31, according to Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M).

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