Sistema plans for life after Reliance Communications

The Russian giant puts its ill-fated entry in telecom behind it and builds on its PE and retail businesses

Surajeet Das Gupta  |  New Delhi 

Vsevolod Rozanov, group chief financial officer of Russian giant Sistema JSFC, does not make a secret of his disappointment in investing in India. “Despite the ease of doing business, it took us two years to close the deal to merge MTS with Reliance Communications (RCom), and all our energy was concentrated on this. And till it happened a few weeks ago, we were not even sure whether we should continue.”  His disappointment is not without basis. The $12-billion Sistema, which invested over $4 billion in its CDMA telecom services business through MTS in India, has ...

First Published: Thu, November 09 2017. 22:38 IST