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Moscow (pte019/09.12.2004/11:45) - Russian telecom operator VimpelCom http://www.vimpelcom.com has been hit by a 158 million dollar (118.65 million euro) tax bill. As the Financial Times (FT) http://www.ft.com reports, Russian authorities have claimed back taxes from the country's second-largest mobile phone company for its activity in 2001. VimpelCom has said it will appeal against the tax bill. "VimpelCom does not agree with the initial conclusion. Previously VimpelCom has always been able to regulate issues with the tax inspection at the professional level," the company said.
The tax claims comes only two weeks after the forced sale of the oil company Yukos, and has unnerved investors, who regard it as the next stage in a fight against the rulers in Russia. As the FT reports, observers have seen the tax demand as a move against Alfa Group, an industrial conglomerate controlled by billionaire Mikhail Fridman, which owns 25 per cent of VimpelCom and is locked in a dispute with Leonid Reiman, the minister of telecommunications. The purchase of a 25 per cent stake in Megafon, a telecoms company believed to have links with Reiman, was challenged by IPOC, an offshore investment earlier this year. In a case between Alfa and IPOC in the British Virgin Islands, Reiman was accused of being involved in corrupt and criminal activities. He had previously questioned the legitimacy of VimpelCom's licence to operate in Moscow and its past tax record.
The claims against the company, which amount to three times its net profits in 2001, have sparked fresh fears that any privately owned business could face attacks by authorities if their interests are at odds with those of better connected rivals. "This move will worry everybody who was previously thinking that Yukos was a one-off case," said Steven O'Sullivan, head of research at United Financial Group, a Moscow-based brokerage. According to Konstantin Chernyshev, a telecoms analyst at UralSib Bank in Moscow, it could be a signal that any company might face similar charges.
VimpelCom, which is part-owned by Telenor of Norway, made a net profit of 47 million dollars (35.34 million euros) in 2001 on sales of 428 million dollars (321.85 million euros). On news of the tax claim, Russian markets fell five per cent and VimpelCom shares suffered their biggest drop in six years. The telecom group's New York-listed American Depositary Receipts fell more than 20 per cent.
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