Earnings Labs

VEON Ltd. (VEON)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 17, 2016

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Transcript

Bart Morselt

Management

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to VimpelCom's Analyst and Investor Day. This afternoon, we have a quite interesting program for you [indiscernible] presenting the introduction in terms of the key achievements for 2015. Jean-Yves is sitting here in front. Maybe you can raise your hand, so everybody can see you. Thank you. After his introduction, Andrew Davies, CFO, will talk about the 2015 results in greater detail before handing over again to Jean-Yves to talk about the vision, and also, the first of the 6 strategic priorities that this presentation is centered around, called world-class operations. After Jean-Yves, the show will be taken over by Christopher Schlaeffer, who's our new Chief Digital Officer, to talk about new revenue streams in our digital initiatives. After that, we will have a Q&A session, and then a little break for tea or coffee, okay. We then continue the program with our Chief Technology Officer, Yogesh Malik, talking about the technological innovations that we're working at. Before handing over, like to discuss the performance transformation topic by Alex Matuschka. Alex will hand back to Andrew Davies, who will then discuss the last of our 6 strategic priorities, called structural improvements, and the outlook for the year, okay? And thereafter, we will finish with Q&A and after the Q&A, we'll have refreshments with the opportunity to talk to management on a more informal basis. The next slide is probably the most complicated of today. You have to read this carefully. I have to tell you. Our presentation contains forward-looking statements, which therefore involve certain risks and uncertainties, for example, in terms of the financial targets for 2016, but also on planned performance, transformation goals and costs involved. The disclaimer serves to say that actual results may differ materially from those that are in the forward-looking statements. All of the materials, including the reconciliations of non-GAAP measures presented today, can be downloaded from our website. With that, I would like to hand over to Jean-Yves to open the presentation. Thank you.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to be with us today for this Investor and Analyst Meeting. I'd like to first focus, in fact, on 2015, and 2015 has been a year that VimpelCom has delivered on its targets and saw good operational momentum across all our operations despite, in fact, a difficult backdrop of currency devaluation, and obviously, economic challenges in the emerging markets that we operate in. We first, in fact, delivered results in line with expectations for the full year. We've made significant progress in delivering against our objective of improving cash flow by $750 million per annum. Alex will tell us more about that as we go through his presentation. And finally, in August, you recall, we launched our new strategic framework, and I'm pleased to inform you today that we are making significant progress in reinventing VimpelCom as a digital operator and delivering on our 6 strategic initiatives. Let me now turn to, in fact, some of these more detailed key achievements in 2015 around our 6 strategic initiatives. And I'll first start out by focusing on a core foundation for us, which is really building world-class operations, and 2 dimensions there today that we'll discuss. The first is how we're reinventing VimpelCom from a fragmented, relatively independent set of OpCos, and really implementing a new operating model, one that is much more globalized, one that utilizes our economies of scale. And within that, we feel that building a world-class set of operations, we need a very solid world-class management team. And as you'll see today, over the course of the last 6 months across our operations, we have significantly strengthened our management team. Whilst our focus, certainly, in the first 6 months has been around cost and cost transformation across the…

Andrew Davies

Management

Thank you, Jean-Yves, and good afternoon or good morning from me as well, depending on where you are. So let's start talking about the financial results, as we started showing from Q3 onwards. We're going to decompose the service revenue and the EBITDA evolution year-on-year for the group into its major components. We're going to do that both on a full year basis and for the fourth quarter. So on a full year basis, what you see is, in reported terms, is a pretty significant reduction in service revenues of roughly 29%, all driven by the foreign exchange impact, collapse in the ruble, hryvnia, and Algerian dinar, causing a major translational impact. On an organic basis, however, as Jean-Yves already mentioned, we actually declined by only 0.2% year-on-year, so almost stable, and what you see in terms of services and products is legacy, voice and text business in decline. And then being more or less offset by growth in data and MFS type services, and data is growing by roughly 24% year-on-year, and MFS revenues have more than doubled year-on-year. When you look at geographies, what you actually see is some weakness in Russia, mainly in the legacy fixed voice business with very challenging macroeconomic conditions, then being offset by growth in emerging markets and Eurasia. And when you look at Q4 service revenue evolution year-on-year, you actually see broadly the same patterns emerging, okay? So we've got a 0.8% organic decline year-on-year, a 25% decline in reported numbers, again, driven by foreign exchange weakness. And again, you see voice being offset by growth in data and MFS, and again, the weakness in Russia being more than offset by growth in the other regions. So we actually feel pretty good about the level of momentum that we've got in some…

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Thank you, Andrew. All right. Let me say a few words about vision and how we're building world-class operations. And as I said, our strategy is really to reinvent, transform profoundly VimpelCom to go beyond connectivity and make this business a digital operator in the emerging markets where we operate. And whilst in August, we started articulating really our strategic framework in the past few months beyond implementing our strategic initiatives. We really focused on defining that vision and where ultimately we want to take long-term our business, and so fundamentally, we want to reinvent, transform VimpelCom to become, once again, a pioneer, working on the frontier, to unlock opportunities for customers as they navigate the digital world. And ultimately, we think that there's a significant opportunity, second to none, perhaps, in emerging markets. Most of our customers have not yet purchased smartphones. Most of our customers have not yet engaged in terms of digital internet type of services. Most of our customers haven't adopted yet a digital lifestyle. And yet, we fundamentally believe with the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, that in emerging markets, there's a significant opportunity to go beyond connectivity to offer much more to these customers than the basic voice and data services that we are offering today. So we want to ultimately be more than a series of dumb pipes in these marketplaces down the road. We want to innovate again. We want to make our services attractive again, exciting again, as they were perhaps 5 or 6 years ago. And we believe that these opportunities are ultimately very significant as we reposition VimpelCom as a digital operator, and we really take the 217 million customers that we serve today in terms of this digital lifestyle journey. And if you step back, the opportunity…

Christopher Schlaeffer

Management

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Well, this is actually my week #5 in the business, and I'm delighted to be in front of you and talk you through the revenue side and the digital side of the business. Of course, after 5 weeks, I don't know it all, that's clear, but I'll do my best to describe to you what the plan is here. As Jean-Yves said, the last 5 years I have spent as an entrepreneur, basically in Berlin with a couple of companies founded there, one of them now in London, and before that, I was 12 years with Deutsche Telekom. I was the Chief Strategy Officer around the Millennium. I was CTO, CIO, Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Marketing Officer of T-Mobile International. And the last 4 years, I was the Chief Product officer of Deutsche Telekom until 2010, so I've seen quite a couple of things in the telecoms industry, and it seems coming back into the scene and that is exciting. I think VimpelCom really is different. It is different in terms of the strategic framework Jean-Yves have said last year, which is more radical than you would usually see it in the telecoms industry, and I can embark on that and really base my thinking around that. And I've split my role, which is a commercial and a digital role, into 2 programs basically for the year 2016. First of all, this is about the core. This is about revenue acceleration. As Jean-Yves has described, we are coming from a history where we have declined in service revenues basically in the years from 2011 to 2014, and starting to stabilize the business in 2015 with a service revenue growth of slightly negative 0.2%, so that's where we are. But breaking this trend and…

Bart Morselt

Management

Thank you, Christopher. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. So far, what we'd like to do is to do a first Q&A session. So I would like to invite our presenters, all of them, to take stage whilst recreating here a little bit [indiscernible], also quickly introduce to the rules of the game in the sense that we'd very much like to have your questions, if possible, focus on the first parts of the presentations. Please do wait for the microphone. Mention your name and company, that makes it easier for all of us to hear it, also in the webcast. After we've done the audience here, I also invite the webcast people to ask their questions and we'll move on from there. With that, we'd like to open the floor for the Q&A, to whom can I give the first question?

Bart Morselt

Management

Igor, over here. [indiscernible]

Igor Semenov

Management

Igor Semenov from Deutsche Bank. Can I actually start with Algeria? Why is the dynamics kind of slow there? And why is CapEx so low, given that you still have a gap with coverage compared to competition? Why is CapEx so low? Why you're not investing more? What's going on there?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

All right. Maybe I can take the first part of the question. I think in Algeria, I might have indicated in August that I think we're in a medium to long-term turnaround of the business. The business, I think, whilst it has remained the #1 in Algerian marketplace, needs a profound modernization in terms of its customer focus, its marketing capability, its distribution, so there are many parts of the business that we need to fundamentally reinvest to once again be a effective competitor in the marketplace. The second dimension is you know of our turnaround plan and where we probably have made more progress is really around the performance and cost transformation of the business. And there, I'd say that we're pretty much on track, as you've seen from the underlying numbers of what we've achieved up to now. But getting our business right in Algeria is about also addressing still a number of regulatory issues that we have in the marketplace. For example, part of our catch-up in terms of the network rollout is due to the fact that, in fact, it's not an investment issue, it's a regulatory issue. We do not have the licenses to be able to roll out our networks on a national basis, right. We've just obtained that to be able to roll out the networks in Algeria on a national basis. So there are still a number of regulatory issues that we need to solve with the Algerian government and we're working and focused ultimately on that, right. So I think it remains very much still a medium-term plan overall for the business in terms of its turnaround. Do you want to say something more on CapEx outside...

Andrew Davies

Management

I'll just provide maybe a little more context on the last point you made. So we had, if you like, a nationwide license per se, but what we had within the terms of that license was actually restrictions on the number of reliers that we could reach at the end of each given financial year, which is November for -- in Algeria's particular case, from a fiscal perspective. So when we started rolling out 3G network in 2014, the restrictions then meant that it was going to take us roughly 3 years to get to coverage across the whole country. Now that's only recently been relaxed, which is why you did see a little bit of an uptick in the CapEx number in Q4 year-on-year. But you will see somewhat of an acceleration in CapEx in Algeria in 2016 because we're now able, basically, to reach all reliers in the country within 2016, again, with a little bit of regulatory-enforced phasing. But by the end of 2016 versus against the end of 2017, which is our original assumptions, we will be able to get to pretty much nationwide 3G coverage.

Igor Semenov

Management

So relative to competition, you're now, in terms of this regulatory position, you're now on par?

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes, we will be on par. Yes, absolutely. And what I would say is...

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

On that dimension of regulatory. There are other dimensions of regulatory where we're still not on par with the competition.

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes. What I would say is in the reliers that we were already present in, in terms of 3G coverage, we have population coverage in those geographies on par or ahead of the competition.

Igor Semenov

Management

And why is your partnership -- or shareholder structure, rather, is not helping? Having a government as your partner, essentially, why is it not helping you? Why are you still being handicapped?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Well, we've had a dominant position in the marketplace on one dimension. That's been recognized by the regulator in Algeria. Secondly, the partnership with the government is a partnership that was really reborn only less than 12 months ago. And so we're tackling each of the issues that remains, and some of these issues take simply time to be tackled. But we're very much in a partnership with the Algerian government, clearly.

Bart Morselt

Management

All right. Next question, in front here, Herve. First row, in the middle.

Herve Drouet

Management

Questions maybe on Italy. I know it's something you are deconsolidated. I just wanted to have your view on how do you see some of your competitors' recent move. One, planning to spend more CapEx, for example. How you see that impacted potentially your plan in Italy? And another one on maybe on the mobile side being -- getting more aggressive while we'll expect some kind of price rationalizations. I wanted to have your thought on that.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

I think on network rollout, what we've seen is certainly Vodafone and Telecom in Italy have accelerated LTE rollout across the country. And right now, the gap is about 30 percentage points of their position versus WIND's position in the marketplace where we've reached about 55%, 56% LTE coverage across the board. We are not going to accelerate our CapEx plans to catch up. We feel that the current CapEx plans are appropriate. We don't see any loss of market competitiveness as a result of increased spending by our competitors in the marketplace, and we feel that we continue to be well positioned. And in fact, we saw in the fourth quarter a substantial improvement in, for example, our network NPS across the board in Italy as a result of some of the initiatives that we've taken. I think on the pricing side, I think the market does remain quite competitive on the mobile front. But what we've seen certainly, as Andrew indicated, is some good momentum that's been building up in our business over the last 3 quarters, and perhaps, you want to add some flavor to that.

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes. I mean, I think what we see on pricing is 2 vastly different dynamics, and this has been the case for probably 6 quarters now where you see actually headline rates that are available in retail distribution are pretty static, and I'm very rational, right. So you're talking about EUR 10 to EUR 12 for the 2 gigabyte data package with either unlimited voice and text, on such a large quantity that it makes it practically unlimited. But then what you also see is, maybe every quarter for the 4-week time period, a sporadic breakout with a bit of guerrilla warfare with -- under the radar, off the radar, win back campaigns where people will be offering maybe only EUR 5 or EUR 6 for a 2 gigabyte data package, which is maybe not so rational pricing. But yes, that patterns kind of -- it ebbs and flows and is not a major issue.

Bart Morselt

Management

Thank you. All right [indiscernible]. Yes.

Stella Cridge

Management

Stella Cridge from Barclays. I was wondering if I can ask 2 questions. The first in relation to the Russian market which obviously clearly still remains the biggest contributor from an EBITDA perspective. I mean obviously, we've had the very sharp decline in oil prices in the last few months. And I'm just wondering what you're really seeing in Q1 so far in terms of trends in the local market, in terms of competition. And of course, we've seen some pressure push regarding consolidation. Would something like that makes sense, and from your perspective? and that would be great. And the second is if you could give us an update on the status of the Russia towers? And how does that actually work for VimpelCom if this was to go through both from a cost perspective going forward? If there's going to be proceeds from that, how would they be used? And that would be great as well.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Yes, I think what we've seen in the Russian marketplace that, in spite of the ruble devaluation and the economic challenges, our business over the last few quarters has been stabilizing more and more and we've, I think, gained some market position and effectiveness, which for us is already a major milestone compared to 2 or 3 years ago in terms of our performance in Russia. So I'd say so far so good from an economic impact. The second dimension perhaps to note is the concerns the market had with the entry of Tele2 in Moscow. And we've seen that entry as not very successful ultimately from a general market perspective. And Moscow remains, as we know, the critical market in Russia where, in fact, we have a leadership position within Moscow and the Moscow region. And within that, in terms of portability, we've been the lowest donor of low-end customers in fact to Tele2. So I think our marketing position of a focus in fact on bundles, particularly in Moscow, has been highly effective to counter Tele2's entry. So at this stage, to your point, would consolidation makes sense in the Russian marketplace? Our perspective is that there's no need for consolidation at this stage and the market structure, as it is, is satisfactory to our perspective. So I think I've covered pretty much unless you want to add something on Russia, Andrew?

Andrew Davies

Management

No. I think in terms of macroeconomics, that's okay.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

On towers, I think that what we've articulated as part of our strategy is that we would seek to move towards a more network asset-light model. And 3 dimensions of that strategy are absolutely crucial for us. The first is that we introduce in our network much more disruptive network technologies than we have in the past or fundamentally look at how we can shift, not only the services, the quality of service, but the cost base of the network, first dimension. Second dimension is that we focus much more on network sharing opportunities where those network sharing opportunities exist. And hence, the announcements that we've made in Russia. There is no economic rationale to roll out in large geographies networks on a standalone basis in what has become mature marketplaces. So we think it's a highly effective strategy to basically share different dimensions of the network with one or the other partner in each of our geographies. So we will continue pursuing those opportunities where they exist. And the third really is a strategy around our tower portfolio. We will seek to dispose of our tower portfolio. Italy was the first of transactions at the beginning of 2015 and we're actively pursuing a number of transactions across virtually the entire portfolio. Now having said that, we will only undertake transactions at this point in time that create substantial shareholder value. This is not about selling the portfolio for the sake of selling the portfolio. We're very attached to the economics of the transaction and really the NPV creation for our shareholders as a business. So at this stage, I think we will be able to pursue a number of transactions. I wouldn't be bullish about pursuing every one of the market transactions, given some of the economic challenges that this marketplace faces. It's not necessarily the right time in all the markets at this stage to dispose of the tower portfolio. Do you want to talk about treatments?

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes. I'll pick up on your last comment as well just to emphasize that we're only interested in doing tower transactions with a strategic investor. I was actually going to run them as tower assets and drive synergies and collocation benefits, et cetera, et cetera. And then -- and that's how we get significant NPV. I mean, if we're just a financial investor like an expensive form of debt, at the end of the day, just an expensive liquidity play. I think in terms of what we'd look to do with potential tower proceeds, I'm stealing a bit of the thunder from my later presentation, but one of the focus areas is going to be to further diversify away from dollar funding, subject to market pricing, liquidity and tenor. And so with that, we'd probably look, first of all, to take care of some dollar-denominated debt. But we're quite away from that at the moment.

Bart Morselt

Management

Next question, please. [indiscernible]

Unknown Analyst

Management

[indiscernible] I just had 2 questions, 1 in Pakistan and kind of 2 small questions on Bangladesh. On Pakistan, could you comment just on the recent reports that your merger is facing a bit of scrutiny from some of the other competitors, I think, namely, Telenor who might be objecting? And on Bangladesh, I think some merger is taking place there as well. I was just wondering if you could tell us what -- how you think that will impact the market. And what is behind the difference between the underlying EBITDA that you disclosed in Bangladesh of the transformation? I'm just wondering what those relate to, please.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

In Pakistan, as you know, we've announced at the back end of 2015 our intention to merge with Warid. There is a formal regulatory process that we are going through. The merger will obviously reinforce our leadership position in the marketplace, and obviously, a number of our competitors are being heard during that regulatory process last Friday. In fact, there was a hearing by the regulatory bodies of various competitors in the marketplace to get their perspective of this merger. I was, in fact, in Pakistan last week, and I think that the government in Pakistan continues to have a very pro-business attitude. We are one of the largest companies and largest investor in Pakistan and we are confident that, that transaction will go through in that marketplace. And the transaction timeframe is a much reduced transaction timeframe compared to Europe, and we'd expect to be able to close that transaction before the summer timeframe. As to Bangladesh, Bangladesh is seeing a merger between the #3 and #4 in the marketplace. And I think that we welcome the consolidation process in these marketplaces. I think that when I think of emerging markets, I don't think there's room for 5, 6 potential competitors or even 4, ultimately. I think the market structure should be around more of 3 or 4 than 4, 5 or 6. So I think whilst we'll see the creation of a stronger competitor, we welcome I think the type of consolidation process overall in those marketplaces.

Andrew Davies

Management

I'll take the last part of your question on Bangladesh, so the difference between reported and underlying EBITDA. We recognized within the quarter about BDT 1.8 billion of exceptional costs. Approximately, 2/3 of that relates to a onetime provision for a replacement SIM tax dispute that we've got with the government, as with all our operators in the country have that dispute which goes back to 2005 actually. And then the rest of it is cost specifically related to the performance transformation program.

Bart Morselt

Management

All right. Next question, please. [indiscernible]

Roman Arbuzov

Management

Roman Arbuzov from UBS. So a question for Christopher. So you're obviously talking about a very major transformation of the business, and it's clearly very big undertaking. So can you just talk us through what you think are the biggest challenges to executing on that?

Christopher Schlaeffer

Management

Well, as I said on the last chart, it's really the transformation in terms of, first of all, attracting the talent into that. I think it has to do a lot with getting the right people into that digital division. And the second thing is the clear strategy and shareholder support we have here and on the VimpelCom side. You have to be radical on a transformation. You cannot go there like most of the operators do today from my perspective and do incremental innovation, talk a lot about it. But in essence, focus on the old networking of the telco core business. So I think the combination of these 2 things are very clear strategy that we will write a new chapter in this book of telecoms and become a digital operator, then attracting the talent I think is the first ingredient at the moment, I would say.

Bart Morselt

Management

More questions here or shall we move to the webcast questions? One more up front here.

Herve Drouet

Management

It's Herve Drouet from HSBC again. Sorry, just on the inflation. I mean, we see, I mean, relative inflations in emerging markets. I'm trying to get out, I mean, do you see -- I mean, we see, obviously, some stabilizations of the different business. But do you see more room now to maybe catch up with inflation? Do you think it's too difficult to pass inflation back to the end customers?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

I think it really is a market-by-market equation. I don't think that we can generalize. We have, in Ukraine, very successfully in 2015 done a number of price increases during the year given the inflationary pressures in the marketplace. And these have been successful overall. In Russia, we've seen that it's more difficult at this stage to pass on this type of inflationary pressure. So I think that our strategy, and what Christopher needs to do in the revenue acceleration plan, that is certainly one dimension that we need to be able to test ultimately market by market. But we can't be alone, as you know, trying to impose this type of price increases in those marketplace. And that's the fine line that we need to achieve ultimately. And hopefully, being able to increase our prices without having obviously an exodus of customers as we do that. All right. But it's got to be one of the pillars in emerging markets and in the environments that we operate in.

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes. I mean, just a couple more comments from me on that. So not so much trying to pass on inflationary impact so much. But within similar markets, we've done a lot of work in 2015 on data pricing. I alluded to some of that in the presentation and we've cleaned up and standardized some of the tariff architecture in countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan and even Kazakhstan. And in Pakistan, as an example, we've been able to basically double data yields on a per megabyte basis from the end of Q1, early Q2 to Q4. So there's a lot of emphasis on pricing discipline and pricing analytics than the business.

Bart Morselt

Management

There's one here [indiscernible].

Alexander Balakhnin

Management

Alex Balakhnin from Goldman Sachs. Two short questions. One, you mentioned in the beginning that moving from the local procurement to the global procurement resulted in tremendous savings. If you could share some data points, that would be helpful. Second, your CapEx last year was pretty much at the low end of your guidance. And this time, you also guided for the relatively low spending. Does that mean that pretty much across your operations, we're moving into, let's say, structurally lower capital intensity, well, especially given that you probably have some Algerian CapEx cycle hat that sort of leaves even less for places like Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Just to -- well, I just wanted to know your thought process behind that. Is that a step to improve your original capital, I mean, a low growth or -- so how do you think, especially given most of the currencies are basically devalued against the currencies in which equipment is priced?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Well, I think that our starting point is that, ultimately, with most of our markets being nongrowth markets today because of the economic challenges and the maturity in terms of mobile penetration, the equation of having CapEx levels at 20% to revenue just don't work ultimately anymore. And the returns on that incremental CapEx are marginal ultimately at best. So we're doing 2 things, as I talked about. First is that we've got to reinvent the network deployment model to become much more asset-light than we have done in the past. And our focus on CapEx efficiency is not just about procurement, or it's not just about better prioritization. It's about building things differently than we have done in the past. Not building out towers necessarily, not building out every component everywhere of the network independently from some of our competitors. So I think that's a major shift and that hasn't yet kicked in, right. And we see that as a medium-term opportunity, and Yogesh will talk about that in his presentation. But the other dimension is just leveraging our economies of scale. As I said, less than 10% of our procurement was done on a global basis in 2014. VimpelCom operated in a very independent matter and we think that there are significant opportunities for globalizing our procurement. So perhaps Alex, not to steal completely all the thunder of your presentation, but maybe you could say a few things about what we've done in the last 6 months around procurement and what the objectives are.

Alexander Matuschka

Management

Well, it's pretty simple, what we do. [indiscernible] Ericsson, Nokia, [indiscernible] or Huawei, they operate locally. And one engineer meets the other engineer and then they overengineer. The consequences that the boxes we deploy get features by features by features specifically for this country. As they do that, a global product becomes local. And now we're doing exactly the opposite. We're standardizing across our networks. And as we standardize, we drive complexity out of our networks. We simplify and we scale the volume. Another good example for that, which I will show later in the presentation is that we identified price differences for the same box across our countries or across our footprint up to 40%. And ask me now to scale, ask me now to globalize, start to globalize, we're eliminating these price differences.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

So fundamentally, I want to drive CapEx efficiency across the business in a much more enhanced manner than what we've done in the past, and I think the opportunity is there to go further than what we've achieved already today, not only from a network point of view, but also from an IT point of view. And Yogesh will talk about the IT perspective where we think that completely reengineering our IT stack will fundamentally cost a lot less than what it's costing us today.

Bart Morselt

Management

We'll take a final question from the audience here, at the back from the lady, before we move to webcast and then a short break because we have a second Q&A at the end of the session. So I think you had a question, right?

Unknown Analyst

Management

[indiscernible] from Babson Capital. You've given a leverage target for this year of about 1.7x. Does this include any tower transactions that you might possibly get involved in? And also, one of the revenue drivers you've mentioned, it's driving fixed broadband revenues on fixed mobile convergence. Could you just tell us what market you'd be focusing on the fixed side because you don't necessarily have big investments on the fixed side in most of the countries that you operate in?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Okay. Andrew, do you want to take the first part?

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes. We -- So I think you're referring to 2015, not 2016 actually. So we guided initially at the start of 2015 to a 1.7x net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio. And at that point in time, it was absent any major M&A or any other structural transactions. So we've actually ended up at 1.4x. Obviously, there's nothing to do with the Italy transaction because that's been deconsolidated anyway. So hopefully, that answers the first part of that question. Sorry, we can't hear you.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Target for 2016.

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes, yes, I know. Yes, we'll address that in the second half. But yes, there is a target of 2x for 2016.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

All right. To the point on the fixed broadband mobile convergence. I think what we see as an opportunity is twofold. First, in the markets where we operate, mobile is pretty much the platform but more and more middle class, want to be connected at home through a fixed broadband connection. And so I think that we're going to see exactly what's happened in the West over time in many of these emerging markets, particularly in the major cities where fixed broadband demand is going to increase. The second dimension is in fact that VimpelCom has invested quite substantially in terms of fixed broadband platforms in a number of markets and we've completely undermanaged those platforms and opportunities simply because we defined ourselves in the past as a mobile-centric business. I think we're defining ourselves much more today than just a mobile centric business, whether it's on the digital operator dimension, or whether it's in terms of what Christopher articulated, not only focusing on mobile and fixed broadband, but different segments across the board. Where we have pretty significant today fixed broadband assets is in fact in some of our major OpCos in Russia, in Italy, in Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, and finally, in Armenia where we have significant footprint, which represents already to-date 3.4 million households that are customers of that footprint. So I think we want to better leverage that infrastructure and focus on that opportunity at hand.

Bart Morselt

Management

Thank you and I'll pass it on to the operator of the webcast to take 1 or 2 questions from that before we break.

Operator

Operator

Our first question comes from the line of Ivan Kim of VTB Capital.

Ivan Kim

Analyst

Two questions from my side, please. Firstly on the dividend payment. So you've been talking before about getting back to more substantial dividend payments as some of the net leverage goes below 2x and obviously the Italy transaction needs to close for that. You also referred to macro and need for free cash improvement before. It's a little hard to say whether markets have stabilized, but it looks like a lot of negatives have happened and you have a decent progress on free cash flow. So are you going to review your dividend policy any time soon? Should we expect some dividends maybe in the second half of this year? And then, secondly, on the digital services on those new things like mobile financial services and music, sports, content, can you share with us what the contribution to your revenue is at the moment and where do you see that as a ballpark number in 2, 3 years?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Andrew, you want to take the dividend side?

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes. Sure, Ivan. So I think, clearly, we're thinking very hard around dividend situation and we have an ongoing dialogue with the board around that. From our perspective -- yes, nothing has changed. So clearly, before we're able to talk more formally and more substantially about resuming a meaningful dividend policy, we absolutely need to ensure that the Italian transaction gets approved and that we can finally and permanently deconsolidate all of that Italian debt. And then we need to see how the rest of this year kind of shapes up from a macroeconomic perspective and see what volatility we have around foreign exchange rates.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

But I think that the focus on resuming a meaningful dividend policy is certainly on our agenda, and that certainly is an objective of the management team, and hence, why we're so attached to a variety of initiatives that we've articulated today, particularly on the cost transformation and improvement in cash flow over the course of the next 3 years to be able to sustain a meaningful dividend policy for our investors. The second part of the question, sorry.

Bart Morselt

Management

Digital potential.

Andrew Davies

Management

Guidance on the new services.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

New services, okay. If you recall, in August, what we've articulated around the strategic framework, was really -- that this needed to lead to substantial cash flow improvement and that we were focused on both EBITDA and cash flow improvements in the short to medium term. On the revenue side, getting back to a meaningful growth dimension and particularly in new services for the company is really a medium to longer term, obviously, strategy. Today, the digital services still account for very little in our overall revenues. MFS, Andrew, is roughly what today?

Andrew Davies

Management

3%, 4%.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Yes, 3%, 4% of our revenues. So it's not yet material. So what we're building here I think is a platform for potentially returning to growth if the macroeconomic situations of emerging market obviously stabilize or improve over the course of the medium and long term. But what was important today for us is start articulating that message and to demonstrate that we've got a clear vision, that we're putting the talent in place, that we're making the investments, that will take us well beyond connectivity because we think as a business, that's not good enough to return to growth.

Bart Morselt

Management

Okay. Let's take last question from the webcast before we break.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ksenia Mishankina of UBS.

Ksenia Mishankina

Analyst

Can you please comment on the fine settlements?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

I didn't hear that. Did you?

Andrew Davies

Management

No.

Ksenia Mishankina

Analyst

Sorry, can you hear me?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Yes.

Ksenia Mishankina

Analyst

Perfect. Can you please comment on the fine settlements?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Okay. I think you referred to the prospective settlement in the case of Uzbekistan. So let me say perhaps a few words about that. As you know, we've disclosed that we have engaged in discussions with both the U.S. and Dutch authorities over the course of last quarter towards the resolution of the potential liabilities in the ongoing investigation relating to our business in Uzbekistan. Our discussions have resulted, in fact, in us disclosing today a potential prospective set of settlements which remains subject to the approval of authorities and are not going to become final and announced until that time. What we can also say is that based on this prospective set of settlements, we have previously in our Q3 numbers taken a provision of $900 million. And today in our accounts, we are not making any change to that provision.

Bart Morselt

Management

All right. Well, with that, I would like to thank you for the first part attending here. We'll take a break of 20 minutes, so back here at 4:15. And that also applies to people on the webcast. Back in 20 minutes. Thank you for your time so far. We have tea, coffee served outside and some opportunity for informal chat. See you back in 20 minutes. [Break]

Bart Morselt

Management

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would be so kind to take your seat again, we'd like to continue with the program. Next on the roll is Yogesh Malik, our Chief Technology Officer. We'd like to invite him to come onstage and to start talking about basically 2 topics, the digital leadership again but then on how we organize it as a company; and secondly, to talk about portfolio and asset optimization [indiscernible].

Yogesh Malik

Analyst

So good afternoon. I would just like to kind of start by that then I listen to the question, they were mainly around how are we doing with the CapEx. So I'm going to address that in very much detail. It's not like we're underinvesting. I will say we are rightfully investing. That's one. But then let me start with the digital leadership because it's important that we put ourselves into a right perspective. As Christopher mentioned, we are at a turning point where we need to regain back the customer confidence. Today, the customer is much more closer [Audio Gap] to applications or to devices than to us where we have connectivity and we have a lot of data. So when we talk about digital leadership from a platform perspective, there are 3 types. The first one, we want to make sure that we look at the architecture in a completely new way. We cannot think about architecture the way [Audio Gap] The second one, which we have to embrace, is we cannot just buy technologies anymore. Technology is a differentiator, and we need to own critical parts of the technology ourselves. And the third one is by far the key. We need to ensure that we can deliver execution. And execution for me is, as Christopher mentioned, to think alternative, to attract right talent and to deliver. So let's just go through what do I mean by architecture being thought about in a different manner, I call telecom pitfalls, and there are several of them. The first pitfall where we had and the reason we stumble and we overinvest is because we are reliant on the vendors and the innovation which is brought by them. Big vendors. I'm not going to name names, but we are very much…

Alexander Matuschka

Management

Thank you, Yogesh. So hello, everybody. We talked about -- Alex talked about performance transformation quite a lot. And as you see, it's already reflecting in the numbers. And I would like to walk you now through greater detail what is the performance transformation all about. So we also talked about that we will create the next generation of an operating model, that the old operating model of the way how the telcos operated are old fashioned and not working anymore. For you, my background is 15 years in the automotive industry. As you know, this is by far the leanest industry in the world. And then I was with Nokia and was leading there the transformation. Having said this, we will transform VimpelCom. VimpelCom as of today is not better or worse than most of the operators. So we are average. And I'm going to show you many examples, which are eye catching, which you will recognize that how much potential this company has. Number one designing principle, we're going to save and we're going to reinvest. Overall, our aspiration is to drive $750 million cash improvement. And how do we do it? We don't do that centralized because that will not work. You need to have local management to take the ownership and to execute. So the 3 elements of our performance transformation are: the new or the next generation of the operating model, procurement and supply chain, and this is across each and every OpCo, no exception as well as the headquarter. So let's go to the next-generation operating model based on the designing principles are simplification, digitalization and globalization. We have 5 elements. One is we move to shared service center activities. We will create or we are creating already center of excellence. We renew our…

Andrew Davies

Management

Okay. Thank you, Alex. So I'm going to talk 2 things to finish off the day here. I'm going to talk about structural improvements and initiatives. And then we're going to do a little bit of a change of gears and rubber hitting road and talk about what all of this means in terms of our progress towards our $750 million of annualized sustainable cash flow improvements and what specifically on the targets that we're expecting to achieve in 2016. So first of all, on structural improvements. So I think you all recognize that we've accomplished a huge amount over the last 2 years. At the top of the chart, we have what I would describe as the deleveraging or major liquidity type of activities. And then on the bottom of the chart, we've got kind of refinancing and things that we've done to optimize the cost and the risk management within the capital structure. So from our -- from a deleveraging and a liquidity perspective, 3 major things: the Algeria transaction in -- early in 2015 for -- which freed up roughly $3.8 billion of cash to have towards headquarters; Italian tower sale for in excess of $700 million in Q1 of '15 as well; and then, obviously, in August, the announcement of the JV in Italy with Hutch and the subsequent deconsolidation of Italy from the consolidated financials. On the bottom part of the chart, just focusing on what we've done in 2015. Very, very busy time period in the first quarter of the year, where we were focused on using the Algerian proceeds to execute a $1.8 billion bond tender in Russia, and then an exercise on ruble bonds that were coming due in the first quarter. And then we capped off 12 months' worth of major…

Bart Morselt

Management

Thank you, Andrew. Take a seat.

Andrew Davies

Management

Let me get my notepad.

Bart Morselt

Management

Very good. Okay. So I think we're all set. Let's see, to whom can I give the first question in this session. Igor?

Igor Semenov

Management

Can I ask what's the time frame for the transformation project? How many years you think it will take?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

I think that the -- I take 2 views on it. The performance transformation, that Alex is leading. As you can see, it's far-reaching. I think that there'll be 2 stages to the program. The first stage, really, is what we're articulating here over a 3-year period, which I think, will get our business to much more world-class type of operations and will deliver on the $750 million cash flow improvement. I think there'll be a second step beyond that when we really see the full effects of globalization, digitalization, simplification of the business. So it's really a 2-step program. And obviously, the first I mentioned is the one that we articulated back in August. And you can see the work that's been done is very significant in the last 6 months to make this a reality. And it's not just incremental cost cutting here and there. It's a profound change in the overall operating model. I think on the revenue front, it's also a 2-stage program, right? And as Andrew and I have articulated, our #1 objective is really to return VimpelCom to a meaningful dividend policy and, hence, the whole transformation program is really the underlying foundation to be able to presume that meaningful dividend policy. But we've got to think beyond that in terms of both profitability and cash flow growth and, hence, the revenue dimension is really critical. And I see a 2-stage process there again: sort of a medium-term one around the adjacent telecoms revenue initiatives that Christopher has just embarked on. And what we're doing is that we're taking exactly the same type of program structure that has already proven itself in a number of months at VimpelCom around cost transformation, and we're going to apply that to revenue transformation. All right? And then I think there's a digital piece beyond that. And I don't think that we're going to see significant material impact on the digital piece in the short to medium term. That's really taking us to the next level over the medium to long term. I think we've got real traction around MFS and that's an area that we're fast globalizing around the business. But we will take time to see, I think, areas of entertainment and others that Christopher has articulated. So there, again, I think it's a 2-stage process for the business. So we're on full-blown transformation and reinventing, I think, VimpelCom over the course of 3 to 5 years.

Igor Semenov

Management

And the first year was 2015, right?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Yes.

Igor Semenov

Management

So I guess, my question was, so how do you think about the restructuring cost for 2017? So what's the total cost of the transformation projects, the $150 million last year, $250 million this year. What's 2017?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Look, I think that a significant part of the restructuring costs will be incurred in 2016, but I think we'll [Audio Gap] As we go into 2017, particularly as we do the restructuring of our IT systems and other dimensions, which -- I think 2016 is about designing that transformation. 2017 will be about implementing the IT transformation and there -- that we could think of further restructuring costs. I don't know if you want to give a different perspective to that or add...

Andrew Davies

Management

No, not really a different perspective. I'd give some color on the $250 million estimate for 2016. So the major thing to say is, I wouldn't think of them all as being cash costs in the year. I think there's going to be a fair amount of that cost, which is related, as kind of Alex alluded to, to vacating premises. We're going to significantly reduce our space requirements over this year. And we think that will mean that we have to vacate completely some leasehold premises. And there, we're going to have to make provisions for all the future leasehold costs until the expiry of the lease. So there'll be some cash costs in the year. But there'd be a fair chunk of that $250 million, which would be cash costs in '17 and '18, et cetera.

Igor Semenov

Management

Can I ask one more question? Sorry, Yogesh, when you talked about the new architecture principles, but at the same time, you also try to partner with other players, share a lot of infrastructure. When you talk to MTS, MegaFon and other partners in other parts of the world, are you in agreement on how you see all these things and what, evolving?

Yogesh Malik

Analyst

No, no. I think what we see right now when we are talking to various partners is there is also a thinking on the network and infrastructure layer. And there is also a thinking, which has developed in some partners or some operators and some are yet on the way, that the main differentiation will lie on the IT side and the operating model side. On network layers of 2G, 3G, 4G, in the future, 5G, that would not be the only differentiator. The key differentiating parts would be IT, would be customer data, would be technologies which are allowed to communicate to the customer in a much more friendly manner.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Well, I think it's fair to say that in most of the emerging markets, I think we're at the forefront of that type of strategic thinking. And I think we're taking a very new model to these markets, because we fundamentally think that the models of the past, as I said, are not going to make our success in the future. So we've got to profoundly rethink and, hence, why -- it's a journey also in terms of the number of network sharing-type arrangements that we can announce. As Yogesh mentioned, we're in multiple discussions. And hopefully, over the course of 2016, we'll be able to announce some of those arrangements.

Bart Morselt

Management

Very good. Next question, please? The lady in V-neck. Okay. You're second. Go ahead.

Unknown Analyst

Management

I have a question for Andrew, please. Just looking at the capital structure and capital allocation priorities, could you please elaborate more on a couple of them? In particular what are the milestones? For example, for closing Italy transaction, the main milestone would be approval. For refinancing at GTH, what is the main milestone is there? And perhaps you could give -- maybe you could give us a bit more on timing. And improving cash flow -- cash upstream, are there any particular OpCos that you had in mind there? For example, like in Russia, there are no issues with sub-streaming. In the Kazakhstan, you have recently resolved the issue. In Ukraine, there could be regulated constraints. Just a bit more detail in there, okay?

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes, sure. Well, I think the first one is relatively simple. So in Italy, yes, I mean, all we're waiting for is EC approval. And it is that binary. With regards to the GTH refinancing, so we've been looking at this for quite some time now. And in the latter part of last year, we were exploring 2 main avenues for refinancing, if you will: Firstly, we were exploring some debt -- some bank facilities from the Gulf states or maybe some Gulf-state sovereign wealth funds. That became increasingly difficult to impossible through the latter part of last year as the oil price continued to fall and some of these countries started to get into fiscal difficulties. And it was just -- at the end of the day, there was just practically 0 appetite for refinancing GTH with that type of debt. The other thing that we've looked at is some form of capital markets transaction: bond, paper, et cetera. And again, as we delved more deeply into that, it became clear kind of mid- to late Q4 that it was going to be impossible to execute on that kind of a transaction while we still have the aura of the Uzbekistan investigation. So I think with that, in particular, we want to get the investigation finalized, the prospective settlement agreed and approved, and then we'd look forward -- we would look to move forward with the GTH refinancing. When it comes to upstreaming of cash to headquarters, I wasn't just talking or referring to countries where there are capital restrictions per se. I mean, even in Russia, where there is no restriction, we still want to kind of optimize how much cash we can get out of the country and then really focus on ensuring that we're able to translate the operational performance and the efficiencies that Alex and Yogesh are driving into an ability to upstream cash. I think the only countries right now where we have a form of formal restriction in our ability to upstream cash would be 3, really: so Uzbekistan itself; secondly, Ukraine, where there is currently a restriction on converting hryvnia to dollars for the purposes of paying dividends, but you can do so in order to pay into company debt. And certainly in 2016, we think that, that means from a practical perspective, we will be able to upstream basically all of the crash that the Ukraine business generates. And then finally, in Algeria. So we have an agreement in Algeria as part of the settlement there whereby we can pay 42.5% of the prior year's net income in the form of dividends just with majority board vote, but that paying anything in excess of 42.5% requires unanimous board approval. So that's something that we're focused on for this year with our partner, the FNI.

Bart Morselt

Management

Very good. Thank you. Next question, up front here, the gentleman.

Wissam Charbel

Analyst

Wissam Charbel from Farallon. Can I just follow up on the cash flow point, I guess, in Algeria. I mean, do you expect, once you've refinanced the shareholder loans, you expect more dividends to come and be upstreamed from GTH level? So you're going to refinance your shareholder loan. You're going to get more than -- what $1 billion or so coming up from the holdco [indiscernible]. Do you expect GTH to keep paying dividends subsequently? Is that how you'll seek to extract cash?

Andrew Davies

Management

Well, I mean, I'm not sure that we're going to get $1 billion worth of refinancing completed for -- in GTH. I think it will be a number slightly lower than that. But yes, to the extent that any cash that we get out of the GTH operating subsidiaries then enables GTH to fully repay the shareholder loan, then yes, we'd continue upstreaming cash from GTH, which would result in a dividend flow to the minority investors in GTH. But let's be clear, I mean, the shareholder loan needs to be repaid completely in one form or another before any dividends get paid out to anybody.

Wissam Charbel

Analyst

Good. And just another questions on Uzbekistan. I mean, like after, again, the contemplated settlement, how should we think about the operations going forward? And there's substantial amount of cash there as well. I mean, is it cleansed? Should it be considered as cleansed from an operational perspective?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

We could -- we remain completely committed to our investment and to our operations in Uzbekistan. And that's clearly the position that we're taking as a result of this prospective settlement. I think at this stage, there's no more to add there. And there's a lot of work for us, basically, to look at how the telecom industry, as a whole, in Uzbekistan really becomes a 21st century telecoms industry. And obviously, the issue of repatriation of dividends is one that we, as an industry, needs to address with the government over a course of time.

Bart Morselt

Management

All right. Next question then? Good lady next to you.

Unknown Analyst

Management

Just a question for Andrew on accounting and the guidance. So with your guidance, on the leverage [Audio Gap] you're assuming that the Italy transaction goes through. But on revenues and EBITDA, that looks like you -- it's still fully consolidated. It's not...

Andrew Davies

Management

No, no, no.

Unknown Analyst

Management

It's not for 2016 guidance?

Andrew Davies

Management

Agreed.

Unknown Analyst

Management

Can you just walk us through that so to understand how that works for 2016? Would we expect a change for 2017? [Audio Gap] Post the deal closing?

Andrew Davies

Management

Well, in terms of guidance and on the operational metrics, there's almost -- well, there is no practical change from where we are now to post the deal, right? So right now, the asset is deconsolidated. It's held right now as an asset held for sale, and it shows up as discontinued operations within both the P&L account and the cash flow statement. Once the deal is -- assuming the deal gets complete -- is completed, what we would then do is the net investment within the JV becomes part of the investments on the balance sheet, right? So we account for it using the affiliate method of accounting. And then we just, from the P&L perspective, we just account for our share of the net income and the JV, like, about 2/3 down the way -- down the P&L account. And there is no cash flow impact at that stage. We -- there's only a cash flow impact then if we actually receive dividends from the JV, okay?

Bart Morselt

Management

Herve up front.

Herve Drouet

Management

So I was wondering with still the macroeconomic environment and the emerging market still very easy, have you perceived any risk of potential tax or regulatory regime shifting in some of the countries you are operating in? And I understand in time of repatriation, is relatively clear. But do you see as well on potential capital control in any shift?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Okay, I think that the first point that I'd make is that what we've seen up to now is that in spite of these currency and economic challenges, our businesses have been quite resilient overall in those marketplaces. And I think a perfect dimension of that is Ukraine, and what's happened in the Ukrainian market and how our business has performed in Ukraine. And I think that is an important starting point. That if -- our both revenue and cost transformation programs are successful, we can certainly perform well in challenging economic type of environments. And what we've seen in Ukraine in fact, is that in spite of the loss of purchasing power of consumers, the resilience of ARPU and the desire for better service is intact ultimately, and perhaps, that's very different from other industries. Do you want to take the tax regulatory regime dimension?

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes, I think there's -- certainly, within the last quarter, there've been -- there's been some changes in some of the countries, which, for clarity, is already factored into our guidance and our targets for this year. So there has been an upwards movement in certain aspects of the tax regime in Algeria, which frankly, is not particularly material for the -- given the scope of our operations there. The tax change, which is much more significant, actually is in Uzbekistan, where there's been a major change to the tax regime in the last -- well, since the start of this year. And I won't give you chapter and verse now because otherwise, this will turn into a tax convention. But I mean, basically, it means our effective tax rate in Uzbekistan going forward goes above 50%. And I think it's roughly $100 million year-on-year impact in terms of the net taxes that we pay in that country.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

I'd say to the final point on regulatory regimes, I think that as we engage well with all governments in where we operate, I think that there is certainly a very pro-business sort of messages that we're seeing, pro-foreign investment set of messages. And messages around the importance of the telecom industry and the performance of that telecom industry for these economies to be ultimately able to rebound. So I find that the discussions, in fact, are more pro-business whilst these markets are more and more challenged economically.

Bart Morselt

Management

All right. One question here. Elizabeth [ph]?

Unknown Analyst

Management

I had a question on MFS. You mentioned that you see a big opportunity there. Could you please elaborate then where -- would you know that Pakistan is a quite successful market for you and MFS? What are other markets where you could replicate success, that you have seen in Pakistan? And also, in the Pakistan -- with the case of Pakistan in particular, perhaps you could give us a bit more details on the MFS. For example, is the revenue that we're seeing, is that your net commission that you received from the bank? Does that mean that it's nearly 100% gross margin type of revenue?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

Christopher, can I throw you in the fray and take that?

Christopher Schlaeffer

Management

Yes, of course, [indiscernible]. Well, MFS is a series of different business model. First, it's the traditional carrier billing, which we have in most of our countries with -- which are underbanked. The carrier billing sometimes is the only means to pay for apps and services, and we have that in place across a series of countries. For instance, we were the first to strike a carrier billing agreement with Apple in Russia, if I name an example. Then the second thing is money transfers, and that plays a role in Pakistan. We've developed an app, for instance, for money transfers for people outside Pakistan to transfer money into Pakistan to top up revenues, things like that. We definitely [Audio Gap] account for provisions only and not gross revenues in that business. And going forward, this is really now first step about the mobile wallet. We need to be the mobile wallet to customers, and that will materialize, of course, in revenues. [Audio Gap] But also, it will increase the volume of transactions we're going to have with a customer dramatically. Think about more than 200 million consumers, who are starting to use our services on a daily basis for payments and transactions. And imagine, there would be only 2 transactions a day, we would have 0.5 billion transactions a day with our consumers only out of mobile wallet, supplementing e-commerce kind of transactions, top-ups we have in our prepaid business. So that is a fundamental lever, to walk into a new game where we really are in the midst of consuming the actions, have data around that and can capitalize on that. So it's a couple of aspects on that.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

And we -- I just add that we see opportunities in MFS across the whole footprint, right? I think where we've been most successful up to now is in Pakistan. But we see the opportunities across the whole footprint. And the strategy that Christopher is developing, in fact, is to roll out these MFS services across the board. And in fact, Yogesh today is rolling out a global MFS system as the underpinning of being able to market our services in every one of the 14 markets we operate in today.

Unknown Analyst

Management

I was wondering if I can ask a follow-up question on Uzbekistan-related claims. Do you have any visibility, at this stage, about the class-action claims in the U.S.? And what may have amounted there so far and whether it might be material for the group, particularly given some comments that you made today as well? And just second, the factual question, this cash break down by currency. The other 36%, which is non-USD, is there any euros in there? Or is that all mostly local currencies, such as ruble?

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

You want to take the second part of the question first?

Andrew Davies

Management

Yes. Sure, yes. There's no euros in there. It's very little. It's nearly all local currency in the markets that we operate in.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

In terms of the first part of the question on Uzbekistan, it's really too early, in fact, to give any type of perspective or disclosure on the class action beyond what we've done up to now.

Bart Morselt

Management

All right. I suggest, just for timing purposes, we also would like to take 1 or 2 from the webcast, questions. And then we need to sort of round off. So I would like to ask the operator of the webcast to come in with the first question, please.

Operator

Operator

We will take our first question from Alan [indiscernible] of Credit Suisse.

Bart Morselt

Management

Perhaps you can take the second one, please?

Operator

Operator

We move on to our next question from Ivan Kim of VTB Capital.

Ivan Kim

Analyst

So 2 questions on your network infrastructure. Firstly, on the potential monetization of towers in Russia. So if you sell towers, it would provide an access to better restructure for Tele2, and theoretical, will strengthen Tele2. What's your view of that? And do you think it would be worth it even if the transaction -- tower sale, I mean, is [indiscernible] positive for you? And secondly, I guess, there's a question to your guest. So you talked a lot about, I think, centralization and globalization of the network and network management. So the question is how flexible do you think it will make you responding to the local market moves? Because, I mean, I don't think anyone wants to invest in civil wars anymore for the sake of it. But your rivals can outspend you and you'll share. So what's your approach, in general, to the local nature of telco markets?

Yogesh Malik

Analyst

So I'll take the second one first. This is no rocket science. Mean, today, networks, if I look at all the networks in the U.S., they are being managed out of the geographies in the emerging markets, whether it's Romania, whether it's India, or what have you. The response time to any outage actually is very, very little because the infrastructures are very, very solid and there are element management in every country as well. So when we talk about centralization within Russia of our 8 NOCs, which we have, it will actually reduce the outage time. It would be more cost effective, and it would be much, much more competitive from a customer quality point of view.

Jean-Yves Charlier

Management

On Tele2 and towers. I think we take a perspective today and perhaps, it's a contrarian perspective in emerging markets. But we don't believe that towers is any longer a competitive advantage in what are mature markets, such as Russia. It was a competitive advantage in the build-out phase. We've reached saturation of the traditional telco model. And we don't believe that, that provides any relevant competitive advantage particularly in Russia. Quite frankly, in the major cities, finding sites is not a challenge and rooftops are readily available. So Tele2 having, in rural areas, easier access to some towers, I don't think that, that changes the dynamics in the marketplace. Having said that, I go back to outlining what Andrew and I said. We will look at every one of these transactions in terms of shareholder value creation on all dimensions to ensure that these transactions are absolutely accretive. We are not in the business of attempting to refinance part of our balance sheet through the sale of towers.

Bart Morselt

Management

Very good. What I suggest that we do, ladies and gentlemen, we'll take it informal from here. We go next door for refreshments. The members of management will also be around for a little while, so you can have a chat. I would like to thank all of you for your attention and being here today. It's very good. Thank you very much. Also for on the webcast. I hope you enjoyed it. We also have a little giveaway that we will give to you once you go away. Now up to drinks. Thank you again for your attention. Bye.