Russian Sistema's India unit to appoint banks for IPO

"As we have said, we will be ready by the end of this calender year," Vsevolod Rozanov, chief executive officer of SSTL, told reporters.  The company will finalise the banks for the share sale in the next couple of months, he added.

Sistema, which offers mobile voice and data services in India under the MTS brand, currently holds 73.71 percent share in the Indian venture, Shyam Group holds 23.79 percent and the remaining 2.5 percent is with the public.

The operator also said that it will be tripling its subscribers base by 2013 to 30 million from the existing 10 million users in India.  SSTL is also targeting to complete its rollout plans to complete the commercial rollout across the 22 telecom circles in the country in the next two to three months. Currently, the operator offers services in 18 telecom circles.

According to Rozanov, the $600 million investment deal with the Russian government, which is expected to help the operator in expanding its services in the country, is likely to be completed in the next few weeks.