By Marc Jones
LONDON (Reuters) – Telecoms company Veon said on Wednesday it would invest $600 million in the infrastructure of its Ukrainian subsidiary Kyivstar, the war-ravaged country’s largest mobile network.
The Amsterdam-listed company said the funds would help upgrade the mobile operator’s infrastructure, including improving connectivity and 4G services throughout Ukraine.
The country has seen much of its mobile infrastructure hit by Russian rocket attacks. Kyivstar’s technical teams have performed nearly 150,000 repairs since Russia invaded last year, Veon said, adding it ensured that 93% of the network is operational.
“We are using this opportunity to make a bold statement about our commitment to invest,” Kyivstar CEO Oleksandr Komarov told Reuters, especially at a time when many other firms are refraining from making future plans.
He said the investment, which will be spread over the next three years, would expand the firms 4G network coverage to 98% of Ukraine’s population, but also start making it “5G ready” for once the war is over.
Kyivstar has lost around 7% of its active customer base – or roughly 1.7 million subscribers – since the war started last February. That is because some parts of the country are now controlled by Russia and no longer use its network, but also because others have left Ukraine altogether.
Komarov, who was in London for an international summit on rebuilding Ukraine, said that although customer numbers were likely to continue to “grind down”, Kyivstar was faring better than others and remained “financially positive”.
If needed it could start tapping multilateral development bank support that is available, or borrow in Ukraine if, as expected, the country’s 25% interest rates start coming down in the coming months.
Last November, Veon announced it would sell its Russian business, Vimpelcom, to a group of the unit’s senior managers, led by its CEO Aleksander Torbakhov, for 130 billion roubles ($2.2 billion).
The process has proved complicated and it has struggled to get the required clearances from a number of countries to repatriate money from the sale.
(Additional Reporting by Olivier Sorgho; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Sharon Singleton)
