File-Sharing Site EX.UA Has Been Shut Down by Ukrainian Police

File-Sharing Site EX.UA Has Been Shut Down by Ukrainian Police

1st February 2012

The Ukrainian most popular file-sharing site Ex.ua has been shut down by Ukrainian police with immediate effect. The police confiscated 200 servers on which more than 6,000 terabytes of data was stored. The servers were located in 5 data centers in Kyiv. The Ex.ua raids follow less than two weeks after US authorities ordered the shutdown of another file-hosting service, MegaUpload. Because

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Rumor: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Canceled, GSC Game World Closed

Rumor: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Canceled, GSC Game World Closed

10th December 2011

An ugly rumor coming out of Ukraine claims that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is canceled and developer GSC Game World has been closed down. This is seriously disappointing news if it turns out to be true. According to a Google translation of Ukrainian News, GSC Game World founder and CEO Sergei Grigorovich has decided to shut down the company. What led to the decision isn't clear, although it appears that

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International Investment Forum “Seed Forum Kyiv” will be held in Ukraine

International Investment Forum “Seed Forum Kyiv” will be held in Ukraine

21st November 2011

On November 29, 2011 International Investment Forum "Seed Forum Kyiv" will be held at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Velyka Zhytomyrska Str., 33, 4th Floor, conference hall "Colosseum"). Forum co-organizers are the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, "Seed Forum" and the State Agency for Investment and management of national projects of Ukraine. "Seed Forum" is an

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Russian Netwell opens representative office in Kyiv

Russian Netwell opens representative office in Kyiv

21st August 2011

Russian telecommunications equipment and technology distributor Netwell opens representative office in Kyiv. Ukraine is the first country in which Netwell will have its international office. The main task of Kyiv office will be extending the sales network in Ukraine, informed Paudis. Deputy general director Yevgeniy Chepusov commented: “Being a niche distributor we are able to provide our

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Several satellite TV platforms are planning to start in Ukraine in 2011

Several satellite TV platforms are planning to start in Ukraine in 2011

8th August 2011

Ukraine is to experience a significant increase of new TV services, with up to two DTH (direct-to-home) platforms and a DTT (digital terrestrial television) operation expected to start this automn. On August 5 General Satellite (Russia) announced that it is considering to enter Ukrainian market. They are planning to expand several DTH (direct-to-home) projects around the world, and they see

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Ukraine

AVentures Capital invest $1 mln. in Ukrainian-Based Divan.TV

5th August, 2011

AVentures Capital, along with several other private investors, are the first to invest into Divan.TV. Divan.TV is a new concept in the television experience. Divan will be targeting the Central Eastern European area. Adventures Capital has stated that their investment, at this time, has not exceeded $1 million, informed Paudis. Divan TV (www.divan.tv)  Divan.TV was established in 2009 and has quickly developed into a new platform that could change the way everyone experiences television. With the Divan box attached to the television, consumers can interact with their television through several multi-media methods. Divan is targeting the Ukraine and Russia for its initial release in Fall 2011. Divan believes it will be in 1 million households by 2014. AVentures Capital (www.aventures.com)  AVentures Capital was founded in 1994 by Andrey Kolodyuk, and has realized over $1 billion in assets through 30 separate projects. Aventures Capital targets innovative IT start up ventures and is expanding its interests into the telecommunications and commercial property industries.

Ukraine attracted EUR 96 mln investments from private equity funds in 2010

27th July, 2011

According to a report by the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) Ukraine attracted EUR 96 mln investments from private equity funds. Investment activity in 2010 was highly concentrated in six countries: Poland (EUR 657 mln), the Czech Republic (EUR 193 mln), Romania (EUR 119 mln), Ukraine (EUR 96 mln), Bulgaria (EUR 82 mln) and Hungary (EUR 65 mln). Together, they accounted for 94% of the total CEE private equity investment value in 2010 (EUR 1.29 bn) and 68% of the total number of companies financed. Private equity and venture capital funds focused on the Central and Eastern Europe attracted EUR 645 mln of new funds raised for investments into the companies in the region during 2010. (c) EVCA

Eutelsat will provide satellite Internet to users across Ukraine

27th July, 2011

Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) will provide satellite Internet to users across Ukraine. Eutelsat announced the signature of a distribution contract for the Tooway™ broadband service between its Skylogic subsidiary and Eurosat-Ukraine. Eurosat-Ukraine is an affiliate of Altegrosky, a leading provider of satellite-delivered telecoms services in Russia and CIS countries. The new contract between Skylogic and Eurosat-Ukraine covers distribution to consumers in the Ukraine of the Tooway™ new generation satellite broadband service, which is delivered via Eutelsat’s KA-SAT satellite. With Tooway™ packages enabling users to benefit from download speeds of up to 10 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 4 Mbps, Eurosat-Ukraine can now offer fast and immediate Internet access to users across the Ukraine. Leveraging Altegrosky’s extensive experience of providing traditional VSAT solutions in Russia, with 6 500 terminals already deployed, the company plans to focus on rural areas and areas with poor ADSL and mobile broadband coverage. Over 10 million households in the Ukraine’s rural and suburban areas are not served by any Internet access, representing a significant addressable market. Celebrating the partnership with Eutelsat, Sergey Pekhterev General Manager of Altegrosky, said: “Our new partnership with Skylogic and Eutelsat is a powerful new platform for expanding our range of services and increasing the efficiency of the solutions we offer. Our objective with our joint effort is to tackle the problem of white spots by offering the speed and performance of Tooway™ to households across the Ukraine.” Arduino Patacchini, CEO of Skylogic responded: “The selection of Tooway™ by Altegrosky, an expert in satellite-based telecom networks, highlights the confidence of our partners in the new KA-SAT broadband infrastructure. We look forward to developing Tooway™ service growth in Eastern Europe with Altegrosky and Eurosat-Ukraine, and believe that the performance and affordability of our new-generation satellite broadband services will contribute to rapidly reducing digital exclusion for individuals deprived of high-speed Internet access.” The new generation Tooway™ service is provided by Eutelsat’s KA-SAT satellite which went into full commercial service in May. With its total throughput of more than 70 Gbps, KA-SAT is a wireless broadband infrastructure designed to deliver fast, effective and affordable IP applications to users across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. (c) Paudis

Yandex seed finances US/Ukrainian Internet Startup

7th July, 2011

Yandex invested dozens of thousands dollars in a US/Ukrainian Internet startup Refine.io. Its office is in California, USA, and the development team is in Ukraine, informed Paudis. Refine.io is a mobile application creation service aimed at creation of prototypes of iOS applications using convenient drag-n-drop constructor.

Pandora should be trading at $2/share, tops

19th June, 2011

Pandora’s IPO yesterday peaked at $26/share, giving them a brief valuation of $4 billion. The stock quickly deflated to a closing price of $17.50, moving that valuation to $2.8 billion. Even that is a fantastical and bubblicious number that will not stand up to scrutiny. Here is a back-of-the-envelope analysis based on the S-1 that investors should have made before throwing their money in the box: Best possible case of active users growth 80M users have tried Pandora 30M users converted to active users (listen at least 1x per week) That gives us a 37.5% conversion rate (30M/80M) Pandora is currently only available in the US (and expanding to foreign markets is very hard) The US has 240M people online (310M people * 77% internet penetration) Facebook is one of the most popular services in the US 146M users have tried Facebook in the US (who knows how many are active) If Pandora could become as popular as Facebook, they’ll reach another 66M users (146M - 80M) That will give them another 25M active users (66M * 37.5%) So the likely maximum Pandora’s userbase can grow in the US is 85%, or 55M active users Revenue extrapolation for 2010 Pandora has reported $77.8M in advertising revenue for the first 9 months of 2010. For the sake of analyzing per customer numbers on a yearly basis, let’s assume no additional growth for the last 3 months (although they most certainly will grow). So that’s $104M in advertising revenue for 2010 (($77.8M / 9 months) * 12 months). Best case scenario for net advertising profits Pandora made $3.46/user from advertising in 2010 ($104M revs / 30M active users) It paid $1.56/user in music royalties for 2010 ($45M / 30M active users) Thus, gross profit from advertising (before other costs like servers, bandwidth, staff, and marketing) was $2/user ($3.46 - $1.56) Music royalty cost may go down a little with additional scale, but that’s not a given (they paid 45% of revenues in royalties in ‘07, 81% in ‘08, 60% in ‘09, and now 50% in ‘10 — it was very high in ‘08/09 before the Copyright Royalty Board adjusted rates until 2015) But let’s be kind and assume reduced royalty costs of 40%, so the number drops to $1.24/user, which would increase gross profit per user to $2.21 ($3.46 - $1.24) So the most Pandora can make from advertising in gross advertising profits is $122M (55M active users * $2.21) Let’s say they reach fantastic economies of scale and their remaining costs only go up 50% even as their user base soars 85%. That means other costs will total 66M (44M * 1.5) So the best case scenario for advertising profits (assuming Facebook-like popularity) would be a net $56M ($122M gross profit - $66M costs) Best case scenario for net subscription profits Using the same assumption for 2010 as above, Pandora made $16M from subscriptions A subscription costs $36/yr, so that means they have 444K paying subscribers ($16M / $36) So their free-to-paid conversion rate is 1.5% (444K paying users / 30M active users) If they can keep up that conversion rate as they grow to Facebook popularity (highly unlikely), they’ll get a total of 821K paying subscribers That would net a total of $30M from subscriptions (we’ve already included costs of content and operation in the advertising analysis above, so let’s just assume it’s all profit) Adjusting the best case scenario for total profits Based on the quick analysis above, the best case scenario for growth in the US gives Pandora the potential for $86M/year in profits ($56M from advertising and $30M in subscriptions). Given that they’d have to become as popular as Facebook to get there, that’s beyond optimistic. So let’s just say if they become 2/3s as popular, they’d make $56M/yr. Still highly optimistic, but not as far removed from reality. But what if they go international? They could, but it would be incredibly tough and expensive. Not only would they face daunting competitors in Europe like Spotify, they’d also have to deal with a labyrinth of licensing issues. Add in the increased cost of marketing, overseas offices, and the hardship of international advertising sales (you don’t think it’s as profitable to sell ads in Portugal as it is in the US, do you?) and you’re left with an international expansion that is unlikely to materially increase Pandora’s worth as a business. So where does that leave the valuation? The best case scenario is to become a $56M/yr-in-profits business Let’s say they’ll be worth 12x P/E at that point (a generous number given that Apple is trading at a forward 12x P/E and have tremendous growth upside) That means Pandora’s market cap — by the time they hit all their best case scenario marks! — would be $672M ($56M * 12) Given the current number of outstanding shares, that means the price per share should be $4 ($672M market cap / 160M outstanding shares) That means $4/share is where the price should land after an awesome 85% growth in active users AND a decade of losses transformed into a delicious $56M/yr in profits. Now factor in that this best case scenario has big risks: they don’t become as popular, royalty costs go up, they get more competition, the users switch to mobile instead of computer with less profitable ads, and on and on. What exactly do you think is the fair price for the stock today?  Let me continue my generous streak and say that Pandora might be a reasonable gamble at $2/share, tops. That would still value a company that’s never seen a dollar of profit in its decade-long history at almost $320M (~160M outstanding shares at the moment). An astonishing, princely sum for a promise-of-a-perhaps profitable business in the future.

Three of Top 10 M&A deals in Ukraine in 2011 were financed with foreign capital

15th May, 2011

Three of Top 10 Ukrainian M&A deals in 2011, stated by KyivPost newspaper were financed by foreign capital. These are: Ukrtelecom, Inkerman, VAB Bank. Ukrtelecom  It is hard to consider this year’s privatization of a 93 percent stake in fixed-line telephone monopoly Ukrtelecom as a classical M&A transaction. For one, it was a privatization deal. Secondly, controversial conditions of the privatization auction excluded many top investors from taking part. As a result, only one bidder took part.  And in the end, the market is convinced that the new owner, Austria’s EPIC, represents domestic business interests as a front. Nevertheless, Ukrtelecom was acquired by the group for $1.3 billion, making it the second largest privatization acquisition in Ukraine’s history after the 2005 $4.8 billion purchase Kryvorizhstal by Mittal Steel (Today ArcelorMittal).  Ukrtelecom’s privatization also deserves attention because the company owns Ukraine’s sole license for 3G telecommunications. Inkerman In January, Horizon Capital, a private equity fund, and Hartwall Capital of Finland, bought a stake in Crimea-based Inkerman, one of Ukraine’s largest wine producers. The sale price was not disclosed. VAB Bank In January, TBIF Financial Services, a Dutch company which represents the interests of Israeli investors, sold an 84 percent stake in Ukraine’s VAB Bank to an unknown group of foreign investors for $69 million.  According to January note to investors produced by Renaissance Capital, the new owners were represented by Troika Dialog, an investment bank that is active in Russia. The sale comes after VAB bank doubled its losses in 2010 to $78 million.

Activ Solar plans to invest 700 mln Euro in solar energy in Ukraine

7th May, 2011

According to Austrian newspaper WirtschaftsBlatt, Austrian company Activ Solar plans to invest additional 700 mln Euro in solar energy projects in Ukraine.  Activ Solar already invested 300 mln Euro in semiconductor factory in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, says Kaveh Ertefai, General Director of Active Solar.  According to ProUa.com Activ Solar is connected to Ukrainian businessmen Andrei Klyuev and Sergei Klyuev, the co-owners of Austrian holding SLAV AG.

Police Raid Russia’s Largest Porn BitTorrent Site

Police Raid Russia’s Largest Porn BitTorrent Site

30th April, 2011

In 2010, Russian authorities seized the domain of the country’s biggest BitTorrent tracker, Torrents.ru, in copyright related action. Now, just over a year later, police have swooped on its sister site, Pornolab – Russia’s biggest porn tracker – and seized its servers. With the recent demise of two other huge adult trackers, it’s possible that Pornolab was the largest adult torrent site in the world. For many years, when BitTorrent sites around Western Europe and the United States suffered legal pressure and were forced to look for new homes, fingers have pointed to the east. Russia is not exactly considered a market leader when it comes to copyright-related enforcement and neither is its western neighbor, Ukraine. In February 2010, however, an event occurred which rocked the boat. Citing copyright concerns, authorities seized the domain name of Torrents.ru, the country’s biggest tracker with millions of members. The site continues today under a new domain, Rutracker.org, with its troubles seemingly behind it. The same cannot be said for its sister operation, the adult torrent site Pornolab.net. Despite being Russia’s 93rd most popular site, Pornolab chose to operate out of a datacenter in Ukraine (MHOST). The authorities there say it was a huge operation, serving 2 million registered users. With the recent demise of Empornium and PureTNA, this may mean it was the biggest porn tracker in the world. In the last 24 hours, however, all that came to an end. According to police in the capital, Kiev, yesterday their officers swooped on the site’s datacenter and seized its servers. Unusually for a case of this type, the complaints that led to this action were not related to copyright infringement but to the unlawful distribution of pornography. The police are citing contraventions of Part 2 of Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine which covers crimes against children using the Internet – in this case the importation, production, sale and distribution of pornographic material without age restriction. In addition to attempting to bring the operators of the site to justice, the police say that they will also try to identify Ukrainian users of the site. Due to the nature of BitTorrent – downloaders automatically upload too – they too are being accused of the unlawful distribution of restricted material. In the past, Article 301 has been used by the government to shut down various publications deemed to be offensive, including literature aimed at the gay community. Punishments can extend from large fines to 5 years in prison. Ukraine is also home to Demonoid, one of the world’s largest BitTorrent trackers. Unlike Pornolab, Demonoid expressly forbids the tracking of any adult-related content. It also goes one step further, probably to ensure it stays the correct side of the Ukrainian authorities, by banning all local traffic. Pornolab did not and according to estimates, up to 700,000 of its members called Ukraine home. This is not the first time Ukrainian police have shut down a an adult themed torrent site. In May 2010, xsweet.net.ua was targeted for the same reasons and its 35-year-old operator arrested.

DataArt Opens New European Headquarters in Kyiv

21st April, 2011

DataArt, a US custom software development firm that builds advanced solutions for select industries, announced the opening of a new development center in Kyiv bringing the total number of employees to more than 600 throughout its offices in North America and Eastern Europe. DataArt’s fifth R&D center, and its third in Ukraine, will become the company’s new European Headquarters. Kyiv, the largest city in Ukraine and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe, is an important industrial, scientific, educational and cultural center. Its well-developed high-tech sector, top universities and modern infrastructure have long attracted European and U.S. businesses. In addition to its excellent academic and IT landscape, DataArt selected Kyiv due to its cultural affinity with existing DataArt locations and easy access with direct flights from all major U.S. and European cities. “We’ve had a tremendously successful year making expansion a necessity to our immediate and future growth strategies,” said Michael Zaitsev, Co-Founder and Chairman of DataArt. “Opening in Kyiv is a logical step as it allows us to hire top talent for project management in the capital, while continuing gradual expansion into other Ukrainian cities, where the IT market is not as competitive, in the future.” The DataArt Kyiv office will become the company’s European headquarters, strategically located in the city center and occupying two floors of a business center with its own state of the art conference facility. Currently with two dozen highly trained project managers and computer engineers, the office focuses on project management of mission critical systems and is headed by George Kremenetsky, a PhD in Computer Science and a former CTO of DMS Consulting. “DataArt again made the right move at the right time,” said George Kremenetsky. “The company is already well-known in Ukraine, and Kyiv is a recognized IT capital. The fact that DataArt is consistently voted one of the best companies to work for sends a solid message to our clients that our productivity tops competition.” DataArt has an excellent track record in the region. It was voted a Top Ten Employer in Russia by HR Brand 2010, the best employer in Kharkiv by a leading local business daily, and a top five Ukrainian company to work for by Ukrainian Association of Developers. DataArt first entered Ukraine in 2007, opening two R&D centers in the cities of Kharkiv and Kherson, currently employing half of the company’s engineers. DataArt’s Russian offices are in St. Petersburg and Voronezh. About DataArt: DataArt is a custom software development firm that builds advanced solutions for the financial services, healthcare, hospitality and other industries. Combining domain knowledge with offshore cost advantages and resource flexibility, DataArt develops industry-defining applications, helping clients optimize time-to-market and minimize software development risks in mission-critical systems. With an unrivaled talent pool of highly skilled software engineers in New York, London, Russia and Ukraine, DataArt provides the technical skill, accountability and industry knowledge needed to deliver custom applications on time and on budget. DataArt clients include Standard & Poor’s, Harmonic Fund Services, Ogilvy, artnet, Panasonic, Cancer Research, Charles River Laboratories, Betfair, Misys, leading asset management firms and three of the top ten investment banks.

Kyivstar Introduces Home Internet Service In Five Cities

Kyivstar Introduces Home Internet Service In Five Cities

14th April, 2011

The Kyivstar telecommunication company introduced the Home Internet service in five cities in February and March 2011. In particular, the service under the FTTB technology was introduced in Dniprodzerzhynsk (Dnipropetrovsk region), Lozova (Kharkiv region), Makiivka (Donetsk region), Netishyn (Khmelnytskyi region), and Chervonohrad (Lviv region). At present, Kyivstar provides the service of access to the Internet in 43 cities, un.ua says. In October 2010, following the merger of Kyivstar and the Beeline communication operator (the Ukrainian Radiosystems and Golden Telecom companies) the resulting company began providing services under the single brand Home Internet in all cities, including cities where Beeline had introduced the Beeline Internet at Home service. The number of subscribers of Kyivstar and Beeline decreased by 2% to 24.44 million in November 2010. The Kyivstar telecommunications operator and the Beeline mobile communications operator (the Ukrainian RadioSystems and Golden Telecom companies) ended the period of October-December 2010 with a net profit of UAH 514.1 million.

Vega Introduces Service Of Phone Calls Through Internet For Corporate Clients

Vega Introduces Service Of Phone Calls Through Internet For Corporate Clients

13th April, 2011

The Vega telecommunications group has introduced a service "Vega Network" for phone calls through the Internet from April 4. The service will allow corporate subscribers to make phone calls from a city number of Vega to all directions and will provide free calls between employees of different offices within one city with the use of inside numbers (201,202, 203, and others). The operator offers two tariff plans within this service: Vega Network 3 and Vega Network 4 which include 3 and 4 IP-lines respectively with inside numbers and a city number of Vega. The number of IP-lines can be expanded to eight. The use fee within the tariff plans is UAH 50 and UAH 60 a month respectively. The service is available for corporate clients in Kyiv, Boryspil, Vyshneve (both in Kyiv region), Donetsk, Mariupol, Makiivka (both in Donetsk region), Kharkiv, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk, Novomoskovsk, Kryvyi Rih (both in Dnipropetrovsk region), Zaporizhia, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Simferopol, Sevastopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria (the cities are in Crimea), Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Vega telecommunications group was created as a result of the re-branding of the Farlep Optima group of companies (which consisted of the Farlep, Optima Telecom, Ukomlain, TsSS, IP Telecom, Matrix, Vilcom, and several other companies). The Vega Group is part of the Donetsk-based System Capital Management company. The Farlep-Invest open joint-stock company manages the Vega Group.

Kyivstar Raises Mobile Internet Cost 16.7%

Kyivstar Raises Mobile Internet Cost 16.7%

13th April, 2011

The Kyivstar telecommunication operator (Kyiv) from April 11 raises the cost of mobile internet by 16.67% or UAH 1 and UAH 2 to UAH 6 and UAH 12 a Mb of data. For the clients of prepaid and contract forms of servicing the cost of the 'Customary access to the internet network under the GPRS and EDGE technology' service one megabyte of data will cost UAH 6 (now UAH 5), for the 'WAP access to the internet network under the GPRS and EDGE technology' service one megabyte of data will cost UAH 12 (now UAH 10). The statement also says that the cost of mobile internet for the clients changes in all the tariffs expect for: Economy, L, Internet 3G, Absolutely Unlimited (for contract-bound subscribers), Internet, Djuice Internet, Djuice Unlim + Music, Bomba, Health Resort (for prepaid service users). As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Kyivstar finished 2010 with a net profit of UAH 3.901 billion. On October 5, 2009, Altimo (Russia) and Telenor (Norway) agreed to merge Kyivstar and VimpelCom to create a new cellular communications operator, VimpelCom Ltd. (Bermuda islands), to provide integrated cellular communications services in Russia, Ukraine, and other member-countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as in Georgia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Kyivstar and Beeline intend to complete their merger by 2014.

Kyivstar Introduces Proryv Tariff For Djuice Subscribers

Kyivstar Introduces Proryv Tariff For Djuice Subscribers

13th April, 2011

From April 15, the Kyivstar telecommunication operator introduced a tariff plan called Proryv (Breakthrough) for Djuice subscribers. The tariff envisions that the cost of outgoing calls to numbers of Kyivstar, Beeline and other mobile and fixed telephony numbers is UAH 0.95 per minute, SMS costs UAH 0.50 and an MMS costs UAH 1. The connection fee is not introduced. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Kyivstar telecommunications operator and the Beeline mobile communications operator (the Ukrainian RadioSystems and Golden Telecom companies) ended the period of October-December 2010 with a net profit of UAH 514.1 million. On October 5, 2009, the Altimo company (Russia) and Telenor agreed to merge Kyivstar and VimpelCom to create a new cellular communications operator, VimpelCom Ltd. (Bermuda islands), to provide integrated cellular communications services in Russia, Ukraine, and other member-countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as in Georgia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Kyivstar and Beeline intend to complete their merger by 2014.

Kyivstar Introduces Services “Package 20 SMS” And Package 10 MMS”

Kyivstar Introduces Services “Package 20 SMS” And Package 10 MMS”

12th April, 2011

The Kyivstar telecommunication operator has introduced services "Package 20 SMS" and "Package 10 MMS" for subscribers of Beeline (the Ukrainian Radiosystems Company) from April 6. Ukrainian News learned this from a statement by Kyivstar. The effect of package messages is one week. The cost of the service of SMS is UAH 3/week, the cost of service of MMS is UAH 2/week. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Kyivstar telecommunications operator and the Beeline mobile communications operator (the Ukrainian Radiosystems and Golden Telecom companies) ended the period of October-December 2010 with a net profit of UAH 514.1 million. On October 5, 2009, the Altimo company (Russia) and Telenor agreed to merge Kyivstar and VimpelCom to create a new cellular communications operator, VimpelCom Ltd. (Bermuda islands), to provide integrated cellular communications services in Russia, Ukraine, and other member-countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as in Georgia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Kyivstar and Beeline intend to complete their merger by 2014.