By Jonathan Guthrie Russian companies remain keen on floating in London at a time when the market is shunned by other potential issuers. The downside is a tendency to cancel transactions, or to postpone them as Megafon did on Monday. The mobile telecoms operator has pushed back pricing of its $3bn transaction by just under a month to late November or early December. We may surmise that the resignation of Goldman Sachs from the equity distribution syndicate a fortnight ago played a part in the decision. The investment bank was disconcerted by a plan to make Megafon's straightforward ownership structure more complicated. Tycoon Alisher Usmanov (pictured) wants to inject his 50 per cent stake into an umbrella company jointly owned with two other men. The first is the father of Andrei Skoch, a politician and long-time Usmanov associate. The second is Farhad Moshiri, a shareholder in Arsenal football club alongside Usmanov. The postponement should mean that the prospectus for the sale of Megafon shares can give the full explanation of the new arrangement that minorities would deserve. It will also include allow the company to include its third quarter results and last week's agreement of a $1.3bn purchase of a controlling stake in mobile phone retailer Euroset. Both reasons were cited in a Megafon announcement as one reason for the delay to the float. The company said in a statement: OJSC MegaFon today announces that it expects marketing for its planned IPO to commence at a later date. The schedule for the completion of the prospectus including recent M&A activity and the UKLA review and its proximity to the release date for the Company's Q3 results has led the Company to opt to include those results in the IPO prospectus. Last week, poor demand forced Russian bank Promsvyazbank to pull a $500m initial public offering. Megafon says investor interest in its IPO is "exceptionally strong." But unless the telecoms group sticks to the new timetable, its own offering may drift into the slack Christmas period when deals are harder to get away. Related reading Goldman quits Megafon listing, FT Russian IPOs: case by case beyondbrics Promsvyazbank pulls London-Moscow IPO, FT Russia: healthy start for MD Medical, beyondbrics