Veon Ltd. said on Monday that it has completed the sale of its Russia unit to senior country managers, capping months of negotiations to exit the country after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
PJSC VimpelCom was sold to the local management team led by Chief Executive Officer Alexander Torbakhov, the Amsterdam-headquartered telecommunications company said in a statement. The deal doesn’t provide for any buyback arrangements.
Veon said in November that it planned to sell the Russian unit for 130 billion rubles ($1.3 billion). The amount would primarily be paid by taking on Veon’s debt.
The company had said the disposal represented the “single-most material deleveraging action” available to it, while increasing its prospects for access to international debt markets.
Veon was founded in Moscow in 1992 as VimpelCom, one of Russia’s first cellular—phone providers. It then expanded operations across countries including Ukraine, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Bangladesh and now has about 160 million customers.
LetterOne Investment Holdings, established by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, owns about 48% of Veon according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Fridman was sanctioned by the EU and UK last year, and stepped down from the boards of Veon and LetterOne, Bloomberg reports.
