The Competition Development and Consumer Protection Committee of Uzbekistan has approved a deal for Farhod Mamatjonov to acquire a 50% stake in Rubicon Wireless Communication, which operates under the Perfectum mobile brand.
According to the committee's press service, the authority reviewed the entrepreneur's application for consent to the economic concentration deal. A special commission concluded that the transaction would not negatively affect competition in the relevant market and decided to approve the application.
In August 2024, Mamatjonov informed President Shavkat Mirziyoyev about plans to launch a 5G Standalone mobile network in Uzbekistan in cooperation with British company Vodafone. He stated that Perfectum had been privatized and work had begun on launching 5G Standalone together with one of the world's largest companies.
The entrepreneur said the project involves investments of €250 million, with €100 million to be raised through Uzpromstroybank from the Finnish export agency and the remaining €150 million from founders' funds. Finnish company Nokia will supply equipment and technologies, while UAE's e& technology group will act as a technical partner.
The project is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2025 and is expected to create 1,000 jobs. Mamatjonov emphasized that the goal is to create a national mobile operator.
In June 2024, Perfectum signed a cooperation agreement with e& Group to build new infrastructure based on 5G Standalone New Radio technology. Earlier, in October 2023, the operator announced plans to implement 5G New Radio technology with Nokia's participation.
In March 2024, it was reported that Perfectum, previously 65% state-owned, had fully transferred to a new owner. The entire stake in Rubicon Wireless Communication belonged to entrepreneur Abdumalik Iminov. Currently, Iminov holds 50% of the company, foreign enterprise IMC-Capital owns 37.5%, and Kamron Akbarov holds 12.5%.
Besides its stake in Perfectum, IMC-Capital also owned 75% of UCMG, which in July 2024 obtained the right to trust management of the Unified Republican Processing Center (Uzcard operator), ATTO, and Plum Technologies.
Plans to privatize the state stake in Perfectum were first announced in 2020. At that time, 65% of the operator was state-owned, and the remaining 35% belonged to Amis Protrade International. Information about the sale of stakes has not been published in open sources.
Source: www.gazeta.uz