Veon plans to sell up to 20% stake in Jazz via IPO

August 09, 2024 (MLN): Veon Ltd., a Dutch-domiciled telecommunications company, is preparing to sell as much as 20% in its Pakistani unit Jazz in an initial public offering, Bloomberg reported Chief Executive Officer Kaan Terzioglu as saying.

“A 12-month horizon is when we will make really concrete decisions” about the IPO, Terzioglu said in an interview in Amsterdam.

Pakistan’s pension funds, local and retail investors would be keen to have a stake in the country’s biggest mobile operator, he said. Veon earned $1.12 billion in revenue from Pakistan last year.

Jazz’s offering has the potential to become one of the largest private sector IPOs in Pakistan as its revenue is bigger than the previous record offerings.

The country has over 190 million mobile subscribers, with Jazz being the biggest operator of a three-player market.

Veon hired Farrukh Khan, the CEO of the Pakistan Stock Exchange Ltd., last month as its chief financial officer in the country with the IPO in mind, said Terzioglu. Khan will start his role in September.

Veon was founded in Moscow in 1992 as VimpelCom, one of Russia’s first mobile phone operators.

It exited the country after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and operates across six markets including Pakistan, Ukraine, and Bangladesh, serving around 160 million customers.

The company has teams to “prepare us for a potential listing” of its units, Terzioglu said. “Pakistan is the best place to start,” he said.

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