Companies@UA: База компаний Украины

Kyiv, August 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kyiv-based CJSC Kyivstar GSM from January through June 2009 transferred a UAH 1.916 billion in profit tax to the national budget, which was almost four times up on the sum paid in the first half of 2008.

The company's profit for the first six months of 2009 amounted to UAH 1.984 billion, which was 8.6% down on the profit in January through June 2008, the company said in a consolidated report under international financial reporting standards (IFRS), which was published on Thursday.

As Kyivstar told Interfax-Ukraine, that considerable amount is linked with the payment of UAH 4.6 billion in dividends in June.

"The company is obliged to pay a 25% profit tax on the dividends paid to stockholders, which in this case is over UAH 1 billion," the company said.

At the end of May and early in June unconfirmed reports appeared on the market according to which Kyivstar offered the government to pay taxes in advance, decide at a stockholders' meeting on the payment of dividends for 2006-2007, which would result in the payment by the stockholders of large sum of taxes on dividends, in exchange for a delay or cancellation of the Antimonopoly Committee's decision on recognizing mobile communications operators as monopolists on the markets of access to their own networks, which was extremely disadvantageous for the company. Kyivstar denied the information, but after the meeting of Kyivstar's stockholders on June 1, the committee's decision was revoked.

Kyivstar's performance under IFRS in the second quarter and the first half of 2009 in NOK was published by the company's major stockholder – Norwegian-based Telenor, which has a 56.52% stake in the Ukrainian mobile operator.

According to Kyivstar's report, its net revenues from sales in the national currency fell by 6.7%, to UAH 5.682 billion, while its EBITDA [Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization] decreased by 5.2%, to UAH 3.348 billion.

The company also disclosed information on contract and prepaid subscribers. Thus, late in the second quarter, the share of the latter was 93.3% (with the overall number of subscribers being 22.223 million people), whereas by the end of June 2008 it was 94.5% (23.307 million), and by the end of March 2009 it was 93.8% (22.727 million).