Hi. Good afternoon, and good morning to everyone, and welcome to VEON's Second Quarter Results Presentation for the period ending 30 June 2023. I'm Nik Kershaw, I'm pleased to be joined in the room today by Kaan Terzioğlu, our Group CEO; along with Joop Brakenhoff, our Group CFO. Today's presentation will begin with the key highlights and business update from Carne. Following this, Joop will discuss the detailed financial results. We'll then hand it back to Kaan to discuss our outlook and priorities for 2023. As ever, we will ensure that there's time for your questions, but would ask that you save this for the end of the presentation. Before getting started, I would like to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements during today's presentation, which involve certain risks and uncertainties. These statements relate in part to the company's anticipated performance and guidance for 2023, future market developments and trends, operational and network development and network investments and the company's ability to rise its targets and commercial and strategic initiatives, including current and future transactions. Certain factors may cause the actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements including the risks detailed in the company's annual report on Form 20-F and other recent public filings made by the company with the SEC. The earnings release and the earnings presentation, each of which include reconciliations of non-IFRS measures presented today can be downloaded from our website. With that, let me hand it over to Kaan. Kaan Terzioğlu : Thank you, Nik. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Thank you very much for joining us for presentation of our second quarter results for 2023. Our performance in the second quarter has again demonstrated the resilience and growth that our digital operator strategy enables…

Thanks, Kaan. Good morning, good afternoon to everyone on the call today. I will provide some financial highlights for the first half of the year and elaborate on the financials for our second quarter results in more detail. But before I start with our most recent results, let me recap the recent developments with regards to the filing of our 2022 audited financial statements. Our 2022 audit was finalized, and we submitted the audited final to the AFM and SEC and NASDAQ compliance was confirmed in terms of 2002 annual reporting. On July 24, Vion announced that it filed its annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2022, to the SEC. The Form 20-F is also available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. As a result, of Form 20-F filing, the listing qualification department of the NASDAQ stock market confirmed that VEON has regained compliance with the NASDAQ listing rules through the exception granted by NASDAQ for its delayed filing. Our auto financial statements underline the importance of a more compact VEON, growing remarkably faster and highlighting the profitability improvement of our continuing operations from USD 0.04 in 2021 to USD 0.37 in 2022. The Form 20F filed on July 24 also contains a correction to VEON Limited's financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2022, impacting other comprehensive income is no impact to total consolidated equity. There is related to the sale of the Celgene [ph] operations. and has no impact on the results on the sale of Celgen operations as presented on the consolidated income statement and no impact on the consolidated income statement as a whole. Although the error has no impact also on the consolidated statement of financial position, the consolidated stables of cash flows, adjusted EBITDA not…

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks very much for dialing in. Kaan actually, the first question for you, unsurprised me there anything additional you can say around the timing of the closing of the Russian sale? Kaan Terzioğlu: Thanks, Nick. It's a very fashionable question, and I would like to be as clear as possible on this. We are committed as the buyer and seller to close this transaction as soon as possible. We are equally committed to complying with the regulations, which happen to increase over time and change and have different interpretations. Irregardless of that, we expect conclusion of this transaction as soon as possible, and we think we have ample time until the maturities of October bonds arrive. As I mentioned earlier, I think we are moving on, and my resignation from the Board of PJSC is another step articulating the change of the ownership status starting.

And, you've reported some very strong operational results. Can you maybe comment on some of the key drivers of this? Kaan Terzioğlu: First of all, I'm particularly happy the way our digital operators strategy is delivering results. And the level our operating companies are embracing and executing on this. Without any exception, all our operating companies are gaining market share, but more importantly, thanks to our digital operator strategy, they are also gaining wallet share. It is clear that as we engage further with entertainment, financial services, education and health services through applications, the engagement levels increased, data consumption increases, ARPU levels, triples and the churn outs. This is the key results. Why we are able to increase our prices as an inflationary manner and do not suffer from loss of customers. Our customers actually welcome to have more services from us and also pay for it. I'm very glad that we are executing on this on exceptionally well in all the fronts.

So given the recent news stay from Russia, do you see any risk in obtaining the final approvals? Kaan Terzioğlu: In the today's world, not to assume any risks would be not, I think, intelligent. But we have completed all the work that we can do. We have taken care of all our people in the best way we have served our customers in the highest quality possible, and I do not expect any negative surprises. But of course, we are diligent in terms of monitoring a step.

Then maybe a question for you, Joop. Why has there not been more bonds repurchased during the quarter?

We have to clarify. [indiscernible] not party to this repurchase agreement. During the first quarter, VEON informed that PDSPcom [ph] independently concluded the purchase of $1.6 billion of unholding notes in order to satisfy certain recent regulatory obligations. The ongoing process for purchasing bonds is being handled independently by PSE. So we are not in a position to be able to comment on this.

Thanks. And also still with you, can you maybe just comment on how the Russia sale is and will be impacting VEON's financials?

Yes. As we have previously disclosed, the transaction being concluded at an enterprise value of approximately $5 million as of December 31, 2022. As of June 30, we already saw a significant reduction in consolidated gross debt from $7.5 billion as of December '22 to use $5.2 billion at the end of Q2 2023. We also reported group gearing of 1.68, down from 2.61 times at year-end. As PDC Vibegron [ph] the balance of the transaction, this will have a further positive impact on both debt and gearing levels as well as including our total balance sheet.

Thanks, Joop. Can you maybe just update us on the status of the tau transactions, please? Kaan Terzioğlu: Thank you, Nik. We are committed to monetize our towers in all the markets that we operate in. And please don't get me wrong. It's not because we need cash, it's actually what our strategy is. We are a consumer business with telecom licenses. We would like to invest in areas where we leverage our low-cost customer acquisition capabilities and excellent distribution capabilities for consumer business expansion in verticals such as financial services, entertainment, education and health care. We believe towers as a passive part of our network is better utilized, managed and serviced by independent tower companies. That's why our commitment to monetize our towers continues. We are progressing in every single country on this aspect. We do not hurry unless we see the right value for our stakeholders. That's why it may take longer but I truly believe that monetization of the towers will be a key driver of our next stage of growth.

Thanks, Kaan. Could you update us on our capital structure plans? Kaan Terzioğlu: Yes, Nick. As it was discussed previously, one of our recent priorities has been to ensure the group has a strong liquidity position, which has seen our cash balance at headquarters at the amount of $2 billion at quarter end following the conclusion of the put option in April. We expect that on the conclusion of the sale, we will be a lower leverage company. The anticipated tower sales, in particular, are expected to support a reduction in group dollar debt as we move towards increased local currency debt in their country of operations. We are currently actively evaluating various additional options around the appropriate capital structure for the group post the conclusion of the Russia sale.

Thanks. Kaan, could you maybe just talk a little bit about the current operating environment in Pakistan? Kaan Terzioğlu: We are a long-term investor, and we are committed to Pakistan. In emerging markets, from time to time, turbulences can happen economically or politically. Irregardless of that, we see immense opportunities in Pakistan, where maybe others see problems. We are progressing with our digital operator strategy, growing our business about 20% year-on-year growth, continuing to be disciplined on financial management entering into adjacent markets like financial services, entertainment and in the future, also in education and health care. So yes, Pakistan has issues currently, especially when it comes to foreign currency fluctuations, but this does not change our commitment to the country.

Thank you. Could you just comment a little bit on the revised guidance and maybe the normalized performance that you've seen and expect/ Kaan Terzioğlu: Yes. As I mentioned, if we would normalize the one-offs of last year and also maybe this year, although much smaller, the underlying performance that we see is projecting revenues growth of 17% to 20% and an EBITDA growth of 15% to 17%. We have been working on the higher end of our performance expectations, especially in Q2. And I see no reason this to change. Actually, I already mentioned that July was in line with the Q2 performance and actually even delivering hard currency returns as well.

Great. Thank you. And that's another one that's come through from a few people is can you maybe comment on the impact of the Canadian sanctions? Kaan Terzioğlu: Well, to be clear, there is no impact of Canadian sections to be on. It is a pity that Canadian government unlike United States, which has considered telecommunications industry as a humanitarian service providers and excluded from sanctions, Canada decided to sanction our telecom company as well in Russia, but it has no practical impacts to our operations.

I think then we've got time for one last question also this come through from a few people. Could you maybe just comment on the risk of nationalization in Ukraine? Kaan Terzioğlu: Look, VEON is a public listed company in NASDAQ and Europe. And we have United American, European, U.K. investors, who count on us and who support us and who encourage us to continue investing in Ukraine. We have an international management team and independent Board of Directors. We have committed an additional $600 million to rebuild Ukraine's infrastructure. And our 4,000 people in Ukraine is working relentlessly day and night to connect Ukrainians and keep them safe. I believe we have to focus on the value Kyivstar and VEON provides to Ukraine .And clearly, we are always managing our risks in the most detailed way. We raised this in all the transparent way in reports that we issue, but I am confident that our value in Kyivstar is realized, recognized and our further commitment together with Rakuten to further utilize open run in the country is going to be also recognized very positively.

Great. Thanks very much, Kaan and Joop. We're out of time now, please, if there are any more questions. I know there were a couple more that came through that we don't have time, but now we will get back to you if anything additional, please feel free to reach out as always. Thank you very much, everyone, for your time and for dialing in. Kaan Terzioğlu: Thank you.