Uzdunrobita

Uzdunrobita was the largest mobile phone operator in Uzbekistan in the 1990s and 2000s.

Uzdunrobita was founded on August 19, 1991, as a joint venture between a group of American investors, the International Communications Group, with a 45% stake; and the government of what was then the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, with a 55% stake. When Uzbekistan declared independence several weeks later, the registration of the joint venture was shifted from Moscow to Tashkent, with the government stake taken over by the independent Uzbek government. Shortly thereafter, to overcome a shortage of capital, the American investors sold more than half their stake to a group of Pakistani investors, for $2 million and a stake in a Pakistani pay-phone company. The Uzbek government additionally provided free equipment and use of its engineers and staff. The American investors included a group from Perry, Ga, that consisted of a dentist, an eye doctor, an insurance man, an engineer and a stockbroker organized by the red-haired Brian L. Bowen, who was 37 years old in 1996.