Ukraine’s second-largest mobile operator, Vodafone Ukraine (VFU), which bought back its own Eurobonds worth nearly $7 million at the end of May following three offers to pay dividends, has announced a fourth similar tender at 85% of par value for a total of $3.945 million.
As stated in a notice on the Irish Stock Exchange, on August 1, the company made the fourth tranche of dividend payments in the amount of UAH 47.749 million, which is equivalent to the monthly ceiling for such payments set by the National Bank at EUR 1 million.
Applications for the fourth tender for the redemption of bonds will be accepted until August 28 inclusive, and settlements are scheduled for approximately September 4.
As reported, following the previous tender, where the redemption price was also 85% of the nominal value and the offer was limited to $4.67 million, Vodafone Ukraine received applications for $53.395 million and satisfied them in the amount of $5.208 million.
After the cancellation of the redeemed bonds, the total nominal value of the bonds remaining in circulation is $292.532 million.
The first two times, Vodafone Ukraine redeemed bonds for an amount equivalent to EUR1 million. The debut redemption was announced at a price of 99% of the nominal value, the second at 90% of the nominal value. The company did not announce the results of the second redemption on the exchange, while the scaling factor for the first redemption was 0.0040355668 and for the third redemption was 0.1315451889487317.
The buyback of Eurobonds is related to the fact that on April 24, 2025, VFU announced the payment of dividends to its shareholder in the amount of UAH 660.245 million ($15.9 million at the exchange rate specified in the announcement) for 2024. According to the restrictions of the National Bank, they will be paid in separate monthly dividend payments. Each such monthly dividend is expected to amount to the equivalent of EUR1 million in hryvnia.
The company emphasized that under the terms of the bond issue, in this case, it must offer all bondholders to submit an application for their sale for an amount equal to the amount of dividends paid outside Ukraine.
VFU previously recalled that a total of $300 million in bonds maturing in February 2027 with a nominal rate of 9.625% per annum were issued, of which the company currently holds $0.5 million in bonds.
As reported, VFU increased its revenue by 13.1% to UAH 24.44 billion in 2024, while reducing its net profit by 30.1% to UAH 3.54 billion.
In January-March 2025, revenue grew by 14% compared to the same period in 2024, to UAH 6.59 billion, while net profit fell by 24%, to UAH 697 million.
