The owner of Kyivstar is not allowed to sell “Vympelcom” and leave the Russian market – SMI

In November 2022, the telecommunications holding Veon, which owns the Kyivstar operator, announced the sale of its Russian asset, Vympelcom, which owns the Beeline brand. However, according to the Russian mass media, the Russian government did not approve the agreement on the sale of VimpelCom to the Russian top management, reports Ain.

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What is known about exiting the market

In November 2022, Veon announced that a group of top managers of Vimpelcom, led by CEO Alexander Torbakhov, concluded an agreement to acquire 100% of the company. Torbakhov’s OJSC “Kopernik-invest 3” was supposed to be the buyer.

The amount of the transaction should be 130 billion rubles or $2.1 billion. Interestingly, this is twice the market capitalization of the Veon group itself: when the transaction was announced, the capitalization amounted to slightly more than $1 billion. and part to the holding itself.

According to Russian mass media, the sale of the company’s top management was planned as an interim solution, and in the future Vimpelcom was supposed to go to a profile investor. According to sources, such an investor should be Gazprom.

Read also: The owner of “Kievstar” put the Russian “Beeline” up for sale Why did the Russians block the exit of Veon

The Russian Ministry of Finance demanded that Vimpelcom fulfill its obligations to the owners of Eurobonds before concluding the agreement. Some of them, for example, the “Leader” company, even started relevant legal proceedings.

In response, Veon launched a regulatory procedure in Great Britain to obtain the consent of holders of bonds with a total value of $1.2 billion due in 2023 for their postponement.

However, as noted by the Russians themselves, regardless of the decisions that will be made in Great Britain, the Russian regulators, who do not want to release Veon from Russia until settlements with the owners of the obligations, will continue to put pressure on the company.

Why is it important?

VimpelCom is actively working with the Russian government, according to Russian officials. In particular, it helps to make the connection available in the occupied Ukrainian territories with 24.02. For the management of Veon, there are no contradictions in this. The company does not call the war “war” in its press releases and continued to develop its Russian business until the last moment.

And only in November 2022, on the 9th month of a full-scale war, she decided to sell her Russian business. However, it was too late. By this time, the Russians had already recovered from the mass exit of foreign companies and recently they are increasingly preventing them from exiting the market.

Source: Ministry of Finance

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