VEON VEON Ltd. - American Depositary Shares

VEON Ltd. (formerly known as VimpelCom Ltd.) also known as VEON Group, is a multinational telecommunication and digital services company. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates the company is publicly traded on the U.S.-based NASDAQ stock exchange. VEON operates in six markets in Europe and Asia, including Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Specific brands include Banglalink in Bangladesh, Jazz in Pakistan, Kyivstar in Ukraine, and units operating in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan under the Beeline brand. In 2024, the company had 160 million total customers, 1.8 million fixed line customers, and 111 million monthly active users of its digital services, with products and services in areas such as mobile financial services, entertainment, health, and education among others.

History

2009–2016

VEON Ltd., was founded in 2009 as VimpelCom Ltd., a multinational holding company. Incorporated in Bermuda and headquartered in the Netherlands, VimpelCom was formed when Telenor and Alfa agreed to merge their assets in the telecommunications companies PJSC VimpelCom and Kyivstar. At the time of the incorporation, Kyivstar was Ukraine's largest wireless operator, while PJSC VimpelCom was the second-largest telecommunications operator in Russia. Kyivstar had been founded in 1994 by Ihor Lytovchenko, also its long-term CEO. PJSC VimpelCom, founded in 1992 by an American businessman Augie K Fabela II and Dmitry Zimin as a mobile carrier, had launched its Beeline brand in 1993 and listed on the NYSE in 1996.

Under CEO Alexander Izosimov, VimpelCom acquired Orascom Telecom and Wind from Naguib Sawiris in 2011. After a number of acquisitions, as of 31 December 2011, VimpelCom had 205 million customers across 20 countries, and by 2012 it was the 13th largest mobile network operator in the world by number of subscribers. The company switched its listing from the NYSE Euronext to the NASDAQ on 10 September 2013. It sold its majority stake in Wind Mobile to Globalive in 2014 for US$272 million. In 2015 the government of Algeria bought VimpelCom's 51% stake in Djezzy for $2.6 billion. VimpelCom's revenue was $9.78 billion in 2016, while assets were $33.85 billion.

2017–2022

In February 2017, VimpelCom renamed itself VEON, named after the messaging platform that it had developed. The company explained that the re-branding was part of a shift towards marketing itself as a technology company instead of just a telecommunications firm. VEON began listing its shares on Euronext Amsterdam in April 2017. In July 2017, VEON launched a personal internet platform named VEON in Ukraine, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Italy, and Georgia. After a number of divestments and a business transformation, by summer 2017, VEON had around 200 million combined subscribers across 12 markets. By the end of 2017, various listed VEON subsidiaries included Golden Telecom, Kyivstar, and Banglalink, among others in Europe and Africa.

In March 2018, CEO Jean-Yves Charlier resigned, and CEO duties were temporarily assumed by VEON's chair, Ursula Burns. Burns was appointed CEO in December 2018 while remaining chair. In October 2019, VEON hired Sergi Herrero and former ex-Turkcell CEO Kaan Terzioğlu as joint COOs of VEON Group. They both succeeded Burns as co-CEOs in February 2020, and in June 2020, Gennady Gazin succeeded Burns as chairman. In 2020 VEON purchased the remaining 15% shares in Jazz from Abu Dhabi Group in Pakistan for 100% ownership. VEON exited Armenia in 2020. In July 2021, Terzioğlu became VEON's Group CEO, with oversight of VEON's executives and its regional CEOs assigned to separate markets. The company sold its Georgia unit for $45 million in June 2022, stating it was streamlining its operations. In August 2022, VEON completed the sale of Djezzy to the government of Algeria for US$682 million. After announcing the pending sale of its Russian operations on 24 November 2022, VEON completed the sale on 9 October 2023, completely leaving the Russian market. Following the sale, the company went through various management changes, including reducing the board from 11 to 7 members.

2023–2025

VEON's total revenues in 2023 amounted to $3.7 billion. Morten Lundal was appointed chair of the VEON board in June 2023. Augie K Fabela II was appointed his successor in 2024. In March 2024, it was reported that VEON had agreed to sell a significant stake of its Kyrgyzstan operations, stating it was looking to focus on large markets. As of 2024, VEON also owned Mobilink Bank in Pakistan, a microfinance institution. Augie Fabela, VEON’s co-founder, was appointed chair of the VEON board in May 2024. Several other new directors were also named to the board, including Mike Pompeo, Brandon Lewis, and Duncan Perry, with incumbents including Fabela, Michiel Soeting, and VEON's CEO Kaan Terzioglu. It was the largest foreign investor in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023. In June 2024, VEON announced that it was committing US$1 billion in Ukraine's infrastructure via its subsidiary Kyivstar. Also in June 2024, VEON announced that over the next three years, it aimed to increase revenues by up to 19%, and would be increasingly focusing on AI technology.

As of 2024, the company had 160 million total customers, 1.8 million fixed line customers, and 111 million monthly active users of its digital services, while its digital operations had six separate markets. Specific brands included units in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan operating under the Beeline brand, as well as Banglalink in Bangladesh, Jazz in Pakistan, and Kyivstar in Ukraine. These units in turn provided digital services with products such as Izi, Simply, hitter, OQ, JazzCash, Beepul, and the Tamasha and Toffee entertainment platforms. VEON delisted from the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange on 25 November 2024, after which their shares trade exclusively on NASDAQ. In Dec 2024 it moved its headquarters from Amsterdam to Dubai's Dubai International Financial Center.

Owners

VEON shareholder structure:

45.5% of common and voting shares owned by LetterOne Investment Holdings S.A

7.9% of common and voting shares owned by The Stichting

7.2% of common and voting shares owned by Lingotto Investment Management LLP

6.8% of common and voting shares owned by Shah Capital Management Inc.

Subsidiaries

VEON operated in six markets, each with their own brand, as of 2024:

Banglalink (Bangladesh)

Beeline (Kazakhstan)

Beeline (Kyrgyzstan)

Jazz (Pakistan)

Kyivstar (Ukraine)

Beeline (Uzbekistan)

VimpelCom-Takilant case

In summer 2015, the United States Justice Department claimed VimpelCom had used a network of shell companies and phony consulting contracts to funnel bribes in exchange for market access in Uzbekistan. VimpelCom's affiliate Telenor severed consulting ties with Telenor's former CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas due to the police investigation.

In November 2015, VimpelCom CEO Jo Lunder was arrested on corruption charges in Oslo, Norway. The case alleged that in exchange for an operating license, VimpelCom funneled $57.5 million to Takilant, a company linked to Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. The case was settled in February 2016, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and Dutch regulators requiring VimpelCom to pay $795 million to resolve violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).