Telenor Group today announced that its selling out more stakes in VEON (formerly VimpelCom). Decision is inline with Telenor’s last year’s strategic decision of offloading shares in VEON.
Telenor said that it will sell 70 million common shares in VEON in the form of common shares and American Depositary Shares (ADS) at a price of US 3.75 dollar per share/ADS.
Telenor is hoping to raise USD 259 million as an outcome of the sellout.
Telenor’s this transaction represents 4.0 per cent of VEON’s total outstanding common shares, leaving Telenor with approximately 346.7 million VEON ADSs (19.7 per cent of VEON’s total outstanding common shares), including the VEON ADSs that are underlying Telenor’s USD 1 billion, 3-year exchangeable bond due 2019.
Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have acted as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners for the offering.
Following the transaction, VEON will no longer be treated as an associated company in Telenor’s financial reporting and all of the previously recognized currency translation differences, amounting to an accounting loss of NOK 7.5 billion, including tax effects related to the hedging instruments, will be reclassified to the income statement.
The effects of reclassification do not impact the total equity of Telenor. The effect will be recognised in the second quarter 2017.
The net proceeds of USD 259 million (around NOK 2.2 billion) will be included in Telenor’s cash flow statement for the second quarter 2017.
Oh but why Telenor is Playing the game of Selling? First India Now Veon
Simple. Being Norwegian, they got the burnt of corruption in Vimplecom and since then, Telenor has been trying to move away from Vimplecom. First they sold enough shares to be no longer considered a majority position on the Vimplecom board and now this one further dilutes the relationship.
As for India, that’s a sensible business decision.