Russian mistake of George Soros is popular again

Russian mistake of George Soros is popular again - Technology & Media - International Herald Tribune: "It didn't take the financier George Soros long to flatly declare his bet on the Russian national telephone company the worst investment of his career.

But Tuesday, an up-and-coming telecommunications operator bought 25 percent of the company, Svyazinvest, for $1.3 billion — and cast the old phone company as a hot new technology stock.

Comstar, part of the billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov's Sistema holding company, bought the stake from Leonid Blavatnik and Viktor Vekselberg, partners in the Alfa Group investment bank. Alfa had bought the shares in the fixed-line operator from Soros in 2004 for $624 million, a small fraction of the $1.8 billion the financier and his partners had paid in 1997."