According to media reports, the Office of the President of Ukraine is targeting the nationalization of the largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar. In particular, Rostislav Shurma, deputy head of the President’s Office, said that the company has only a few weeks to eliminate factors that could lead to asset confiscation in favor of the state.
As dev.ua reports , such a statement was made on July 13 during a meeting with Oleksandr Kogut, director of regulatory support of the Kyivstar company, at the European Business Association. However, this became known only a month after the meeting thanks to a published video on an anonymous YouTube channel.
The deputy head of the President’s Office pointed out two main problems of Kyivstar: the presence of business in Russia and the presence among the shareholders of persons who have come under sanctions.
In Ukraine, the law stipulates that businesses where more than 25% of the property belongs to sanctioned persons are subject to confiscation. In the case of Kyivstar, we have a significant excess of this indicator, Shurma added.
The possibility of confiscation is a serious threat to Kyivstar. Despite this, the company said, Kyivstar is part of the international telecommunications group VEON . The latter is registered in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, its shares are traded on the stock exchanges of the USA and the European Union and are owned by various legal entities and individuals, including investment funds from different countries. That is, none of the shareholders has a majority block of shares, and, accordingly, cannot have a decisive influence on the activities of the VEON group or the Kyivstar company.
It should be noted that Kyivstar is one of the key participants in the Ukrainian telecommunications market, and further events regarding its status and ownership structure may affect the telecommunications industry and the country’s economy as a whole.
Source: https://mediasat.info/