Kaan Terzioğlu, CEO of VEON Group, the parent company of Ukraine’s largest telecom operator Kyivstar, plans to return to Kyiv in late January to meet with his team and continue the dialogue with the Ukrainian authorities, he said in an interview with Forbes Ukraine.
“I hope that we will meet with many stakeholders, including the Ukrainian government, but not only,” Terzioglu said.
He added that during his first visit in October last year, he was unable to talk to Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Rostyslav Shurma, who has been publicly stating the possibility of nationalizing Kyivstar since July last year, and hopes that he will be able to do so during his upcoming visit.
“When the rumors emerged and Mr. Shurma gave his interviews, it had a significant impact on trading volumes and share prices. Now the shock has passed, but we lost almost 30% of the value of our shares during that period,” stated the CEO of VEON.
Commenting on the seizure of 47.85% of Kyivstar shares, which is comparable to Letter One’s stake in VEON, Terzioglu said that an appeal has been filed and expressed hope that the seizure will be lifted and this will help reassure international investors. He emphasized that VEON owns all 100% of Kyivstar’s shares, and Letter One, according to his information, has distanced itself from co-owners Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, who are subject to international sanctions, and is not subject to such international sanctions.
According to VEON’s CEO, the seizure of Kyivstar shares does not affect the company’s operations, ability to operate and maintain its networks. “The arrest only affects the ability to receive dividends or transfer shares from one owner to another,” Terizoglu explained.
Earlier it was reported that the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv reduced the package of seized shares of Kyivstar from 99.994654% to 47.85%, and the seized share of LifeSell LLC from 100% to 19.8% as part of interim measures in the case against Alfa Group co-owner Mikhail Fridman opened in late September. He made such changes to the earlier ruling of October 4 based on a motion filed by a prosecutor from the Prosecutor General’s Office due to a typo. As for the rest of the seized assets, the court confirmed the accuracy of their original description. In particular, 100% of the corporate rights of three Kyivstar-affiliated companies, including Kyivstar.Tech, Helsi, and the Ukrainian Tower Company, remain under arrest.
On December 4-5, CEO of Astarta Agro Holding Viktor Ivanchyk bought 0.033% of the company’s shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) for a total of PLN238.37 thousand (about $59.27 thousand at the current exchange rate).
According to information on the Warsaw Stock Exchange’s website, the previous time it acquired 0.113% of the shares on June 22-26 at a price of PLN28.8-PLN29.0 per share.
This time, Albacon Ventures Ltd, owned by Ivanczyk, bought 8.32 thousand shares at PLN28.65 per share in 94 transactions on December 4-5.
At the last shareholders’ meeting on May 24 this year, Ivanczyk’s 40% stake gave him 52.93% of the votes.
The latest report as of November this year indicated that the Ivanchyk family owns 40.11%, Fairfax Financial Holdings – 29.91%, Kopernik Global Investors – 2.64%, Heptagon Capital – 1.88%, and the share of any other shareholder does not exceed 0.18%.
According to the WSE, Astarta’s share price is currently PLN28.4, which is 1.22% lower than at the opening.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding company operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It comprises six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220,000 hectares and dairy farms with 22,000 cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globyno (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
“Astarta, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, reduced its net profit by 9.8% to EUR55.97 million in the first nine months of this year, while revenue increased by 14.8% to EUR392.00 million.
The Supervisory Board (SB) of Garant Metiz Invest PrJSC (Dnipro) has dismissed Oleg Kovtonyuk as Chairman of the Board and CEO based on his application, and appointed Oksana Fenik as the company’s commercial director for a five-year term.
According to the company’s announcement in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC), the personnel issues were considered at a meeting of the SB on July 6 this year.
It is specified that Kovtoniuk’s powers as Chairman of the Board and CEO will be terminated on July 6, and Fenik will take office on July 7.
Kovtoniuk has been CEO since August 12, 2021, and was appointed for 5 years.
Garant Metiz Invest LLC was founded in 2005, and later its founders decided to reorganize it into a CJSC and then into a PrJSC. The design capacity of the hardware plant is 40 thousand tons of products per year. The company was established on the industrial facilities of the former Electrogaz plant, whose premises were purchased during the reorganization.
According to the first quarter of 2023, Flobes LLC owns 50% of the shares in the company, and Garant Investments Ltd. (both based in Dnipro) also owns 50%.
The authorized capital of the PrJSC is UAH 1.982 million, the nominal value of the share is UAH 1.
Twitter owner Ilon Musk said Friday that Linda Iaccarino, who was previously head of advertising at U.S. media corporation NBCUniversal, has become the company’s new CEO.
“I am pleased to welcome Linda Iaccarino as Twitter’s new CEO,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
He added that Iaccarino will focus primarily on business processes, while he himself will focus on “product design and new technology.”
Earlier on Friday, NBCUniversal announced that Linda Iaccarino was leaving her post at the company.
Musk himself had announced the day before that he had found a new head for the social network he bought.
Musk and Iaccarino recently appeared together at a conference in Miami, where they gave a keynote speech entitled “Twitter 2.3: From Conversations to Partnerships.”
Musk bought the microblogging service for $44 billion last year. The deal, announced in April, was not closed until late October after lengthy litigation between the parties.
Ferrexpo CEO Jim North has unexpectedly decided to leave the company after leading it for three years, beginning in 2020.
According to a stock exchange report Tuesday, Jim North announced he is stepping down as CEO and executive director of the company after nine years with the group to pursue other opportunities.
It clarifies that North will step down as CEO after an orderly management transition process beginning June 30, 2023. Ferrexpo announced North’s appointment as acting CEO on May 18, 2020.
North will leave the company’s board of directors following the conclusion of its annual general meeting on May 25, 2023, and will also step down as a director of various group subsidiaries.
“As a result, Resolution No. 10 of the upcoming annual general meeting (which represents a resolution to re-elect Mr. North as a director of the company) will be withdrawn and will not be voted on by shareholders at the annual general meeting,” the press release states.
It is also reported that Lucio Genovese, chairman of the board, will serve as interim executive chairman and will assume leadership of the group beginning July 1, 2023.
In addition, the Board of Directors announced the appointment of Ferrexpo Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Nikolai Kladiev as executive director of the company, effective at the conclusion of the upcoming annual general meeting of shareholders. Kladiev joined Ferrexpo in 2005 and has been a member of the group’s executive committee since 2007. He was appointed CFO of the group in July 2021.
Lucio Genovese thanked North for his significant contributions to Ferrexpo over the past nine years and for his role in guiding and shaping the group’s strategy since he became chief executive in 2020. “Jim was appointed as CEO at a time when we were focused on accelerating growth, leading Ferrexpo’s decarbonization plans and further cultural development within the business. However, given the situation in Ukraine with the ongoing war and uncertain outlook, we have had to slow down our growth programs, and the CEO’s focus inevitably shifts to ensuring business continuity and operational sustainability,” Genovese said.
Earlier, Fiona MacAulay, a non-executive director of Ferrexpo plc, a British mining company with assets in Ukraine, announced her intention to leave the group after the 2023 annual general meeting in connection with her appointment as a non-executive director of Dowlais Group Plc, which has become a public company. Fiona MacAulay is currently a senior independent director and a non-executive director of the company.
Even earlier, Ferrexpo’s independent non-executive director, Ann-Christin Andersen, declined to run for the company’s next board in May 2023. “Independent non-executive director Ann-Christin Andersen has notified the board that she will not run for re-election at the company’s next annual general meeting in May 2023,” Ferrexpo’s annual report reported.
Ferrexpo is an iron ore company with assets in Ukraine.
Ferrexpo owns 100% of Yeristovsky GOK LLC, 100% of Poltava GOK PJSC and 99.9% of Belanovsky GOK LLC.
The meeting of shareholders of the tobacco company “JTI Ukraine” (JT International Company Ukraine, Kyiv) decided to satisfy the application for resignation from the post after September 30 of its current CEO Paul Holloway, instead of him Svetlana will be appointed for two years Sharamok.
The shareholders made the corresponding decision on September 20, follows from the company’s message on the information disclosure system of the National Central Design Bureau of Financial Markets.
It is specified that Holloway took office as CEO of JTI Ukraine on January 1, 2018 and will leave it on September 30. In turn, Sharamok was accepted to the specified position for a period of two years – from October 1, 2022 to October 1, 2024.
According to JTI, from April 2021 to September 2022, Sharamok worked as the marketing director of JT International Company Ukraine, and she also held the position of country manager for the Caribbean region at JTI Corporation.
“JTI Company Ukraine” is part of the international group of companies Japan Tabacco Inc. (JTI). In Ukraine, she owns the Kremenchug tobacco factory (Poltava region).
The most famous brands of “JT International Ukraine” are Sobranie, Winston, Camel, Glamor and LD.
Products are sold in Ukraine and were exported to 22 countries before the war.
