MOSCOW, June 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Citibank has started coverage of Russian state-controlled telecom giant Rostelecom on Monday and assigned the “buy” recommendation for both common and preferred stocks, the bank said in a research note.

The target price of Rostelecom’s common shares was set at 106 rubles with a 20% growth potential. The target price of preferred shares was set at 74 rubles with a potential growth of 26%.

Rostelecom is a universal communications operator. It services 26.4 million subscribers of fixed line, 13.8 million subscribers of mobile connection, 9.6 million subscribers of broadband internet access, and 6.9 million subscribers of pay TV. Its own long-haul network amounts to 500,000 kilometers, and over 2.6 million kilometers of local grids.