VEON cancels 26.95 million shares, 37 per cent of its buyback target

VEON has cancelled 26,951,230 of its common shares, about 1.5 per cent of its total issued shares, the operator group said in a release datelined New York and Dubai on 20 October and furnished to the US Securities and Exchange Commission the same day.

The cancelled shares equal 1,078,049 American depositary shares. The release describes the cancellation as pursuant to the buyback VEON announced on 23 September, which is to retire 3.9 per cent of its outstanding shares, or 72.5 million shares and their equivalent in depositary shares. The shares now cancelled are 37.2 per cent of that number, on Backhaul's arithmetic. The October release does not say what VEON paid for them, how many came from the open market and how many from LetterOne, the shareholder that agreed to sell into the programme, or how many shares remain outstanding.

What the September programme set out

VEON put the value of the programme at about $200 million, based on a closing price of $69.37 per depositary share on 22 September, and said the final amount would vary with the prices paid, in the September release. Each depositary share represents 25 common shares. Every share acquired is to be cancelled.

The company said $200 million equalled 27.5 per cent of its equity free cash flow after leases and licences for the twelve months to 30 June 2026, and implied a yield of 5.5 per cent on the average closing price over the twelve months to 22 September. Both ratios use the $200 million figure, which was itself set at the 22 September reference price rather than at the prices eventually paid.

The programme raised the minimum annual buyback of $100 million that VEON set in May 2025, and came on top of a separate $100 million programme announced in November 2025, which the company said was complete. Since August 2024, VEON said, it had repurchased 4.46 million depositary shares, or 6.0 per cent of those outstanding, for $227.6 million in total.

"Returning cash to shareholders is a core priority for VEON," Kaan Terzioglu, VEON's group chief executive, said in the September release. Shares and depositary shares held by the company itself represented about 7.9 per cent of its outstanding shares after an issuance in March 2024 and later transfers, the release said.

LetterOne's share of the sales

The buyback combines open-market purchases of depositary shares with direct purchases from LetterOne, which agreed to sell up to 32,957,830 shares to VEON in proportion to its holding, at prices and in volumes set by reference to the open-market purchases, the September release said. LetterOne held 45.46 per cent of VEON on a base of 1,849,190,667 common shares in its own filing, as Corridor Signal reported when a second investor, Shah Capital, moved its 6.72 per cent stake to a passive filing on 16 October.

On LetterOne's base, the shares cancelled on 20 October come to 1.46 per cent, which matches the "approximately 1.5 per cent" in the release, on Backhaul's arithmetic. If LetterOne sold in proportion to its holding, its part of the cancelled shares would be about 12.3 million, but the release gives no split, and the number of shares VEON has bought but not yet cancelled is not disclosed.

At the September reference price, the 1,078,049 depositary shares cancelled would have cost about $74.8 million, on Backhaul's arithmetic. The actual cost depends on the prices paid between 23 September and 20 October, which VEON has not published.

The corridor businesses behind the cash

VEON describes itself as serving more than 150 million connectivity customers and more than 228 million digital customers in five countries. Two of those countries are on the corridor. In Kazakhstan, Beeline Kazakhstan's EBITDA fell 17.5 per cent in tenge in the second quarter as revenue rose 3.8 per cent, as Corridor Signal reported.

In Uzbekistan, the group agreed on 19 October to buy the mobile operator Perfectum for about $207 million including debt, and the Competition Committee cleared the deal on conditions that include a 12-month freeze on 5G fixed wireless tariffs for existing customers. VEON said it expected to complete the purchase by the end of October.

On the day the Perfectum deal was announced, Uzbekistan's digital technologies minister, Sherzod Shermatov, met Mr Terzioglu in Samarkand on the sidelines of the C5+1 summit, Trend reported, citing the ministry. The two discussed mobile coverage, network modernisation and digital services, the report said, and it noted that VEON says it has invested more than $1.6 billion in the country's telecom sector since entering in 2006. No new figure or commitment was attached to the meeting.

VEON's third-quarter results are due on 6 November, a company announcement says, and would be the first set of accounts to show the cost of the shares bought since 23 September. Until then the October release leaves three numbers unstated: the price paid, the split between open-market and LetterOne purchases, and the shares still to be bought before the 72.5 million target is reached. If the cancelled shares are the only ones acquired so far, that balance is 45.5 million, on Backhaul's arithmetic.