Morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to VEON's Third Quarter 2019 Results. Nik Kershaw here, Group Head of Investor Relations. I'm pleased to be joined on the line by Ursula Burns, our Chairman and CEO; Murat Kirkgözis, our Deputy Chief Financial Officer; and Alex Kazbegi, the Group Chief Strategy Officer. Kjell Johnsen, our outgoing Chief Operating Officer as well as Kaan and Sergi our incoming joint COOs are also with us today. The presentation will start with an overview of our achievements for the first nine months of the year from Ursula, followed by a brief summary of our financial performance during the third quarter from Murat. Alex will then provide an operational review of the third quarter at a country level, after which Ursula will close the formal part of the call with an outlook for the balance of the year and some final remarks. As always with these calls, we will ensure that there's ample time for your questions at the end and we will ask the operator to moderate that. However, before getting started, I would just like to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements during today's presentation, which involves certain risks and uncertainties. These statements relate in part to the company's anticipated performance and guidance for 2019, future market developments and trends, operational and network development and network investments and the company's ability to realize its targets and commercial and strategic initiatives, including current and future transactions. Certain factors may cause 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 financial measures presented today, can be downloaded from our website. With that, I'd like now to hand the call over to Ursula.

So, thank you, Nik and good morning to everyone and thank you for taking your time to dial in to our third quarter results announcements this morning. Let me start our presentation by summarizing where our business stands as we move into the final quarter of what has been another eventful year for us. This will be a familiar slide to those of you who joined us for our Capital Markets Day presentation back in September. It sets out the core elements of VEON's investment case, alongside our achievements and milestones at the nine-month point. Taking each of these in turn. First, we continue to capitalize on the growth opportunities offered by our operating markets, which rank amongst the industry's most dynamic. We are growing useful populations and low levels of smartphone penetration, present us with a unique demographic dividend not present in developed markets. Monetizing our customers' appetite for data through the introduction of a growing ecosystem of digital products and services is our strategy. Second, strong operational execution is fundamental to our success as a business. And here I'm pleased to report continued progress in growing our EBITDA through both solid revenue generation and by further reductions in our cost base throughout the group. Third, managing an appropriate capital structure is vital to ensuring that we can reinvest in our core business and pursue growth opportunities in new services and adjacent industries. The upgrade in our long-term debt -- long-term credit rating by Fitch to investment grade during the quarter was a welcome validation of the good progress that we've made in recent months. And fourth, active management of our portfolio is a vital component in maximizing value for our shareholders. Here, the successful conclusion of the GTH tender offer was an important milestone, enabling us to simplify…

Thank you, Murat, and good morning, everybody. Turning first to our largest market Russia. This is slide 13. In Russia, our operation continues to face challenges related to firstly, the coverage and performance gap we still have with our competitors despite making improvements; secondly, market pricing structures favoring unlimited tariff plans; and thirdly, effectiveness of our distribution. These altogether have negatively affected our performance. Beeline saw a year-on-year decline in its mobile customer base due to these factors, as well as due to the decline in sales through alternative distribution channels, while quarter-on-quarter we saw increase in customer base. Mobile service revenue followed the subscriber trends. And while data volumes continued to grow strongly, up 53% year-on-year, data revenue growth was slower 3% in this quarter. Our reduced focus on low-margin equipment sales during the quarter resulted in a 10% drop in respect of sales year-on-year. On the positive side, the number of broadband customers continued to grow, resulting in an 8% growth in respect to revenues. Managing costs against this challenging revenue environment remains our focus. In this area, cost control measures in Q3 allowed for positive year-on-year growth in EBITDA, marking the revenue trend. Our LTM CapEx to sales continued to increase in this quarter, following our focus on network quality improvement. And we expect this ratio to reach 22% for the full year 2019 inclusive of the Yarovaya-related CapEx and pre-IFRS 16. As an example, number of 4G base stations increased 43% quarter-on-quarter during the third quarter of 2019. As we mentioned, we are actively addressing challenges that we face in Russia. Following the three priorities set out at our Capital Markets Day in September namely, first, continuing network quality and performance improvements; secondly, optimization of our distribution footprint; and thirdly, restoring price discipline to the marketplace…

Thank you, Alex. Let me close the formal part of this call with some observations on where we stand at the nine-month stage of our financial year. Overall, I'm encouraged that the diversified portfolio of businesses that we operate has collectively delivered another solid quarter. Quarter three has been a complicated one in terms of regulatory changes in a number of our markets, particularly Pakistan. But the operating performance of the group remained solid and growth opportunities remain on track. That said, the continued underperformance of Russia is something that we are working hard to address. We are in the process of making a course correction and strategy here, which will take a number of quarters to take full effect. But we remain committed to improving the operating performance of Russia our largest market. In the meantime, we shall continue to drive our revenue opportunities across our markets, guided by our new strategy framework and supported by the new partnership between Sergi Herrero and Kaan Terzioğlu as joint Chief Operating Officers whom together bring a terrific blend of skills through, which to manage the three operating pillars of our business. Underpinning this strategy is a greater flexibility that is embodied by our new dividend policy that we announced in September, which will provide the flexibility that we require to execute on VEON's investment opportunities in a way that maximizes returns for our shareholders. Finally, our financial guidance. The performance that we've delivered during the first nine months of the year puts us on track to deliver against our targets, namely low single-digit organic revenue growth; at least mid-single-digit organic growth of EBITDA; and equity free cash flow excluding licenses of approximately US$1 billion. These are targets that I am happy to reconfirm today. Before I hand over to the operator, I'd like to thank Kjell Morten Johnsen for his commitment to the group over the past number of years and most recently as COO for the group. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors. Thank you Kjell from myself and from the company. With that, I will hand the call back to the operator for questions. Operator?

Thank you, madam. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now start the question-and-answer session [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Cesar Tiron of Bank of America. Please ask your question.

Yes. Hi, everyone. Thanks for the call and thanks for the opportunity to ask questions. I have two questions if that's okay. The first, I mean, they're both on Russia. The first one, in which areas were you able to save costs in Russia to allow for margins to expand? Do you think that's sustainable? And by this I mean if you have another couple of quarters of negative service revenue growth, are we going to see margins decreasing again? And the second question, if you can talk a bit more on the details on the increased CapEx plan in Russia. Is this mainly going to increasing base stations? How long do you think you need to bridge the gap with competitors, because I think you're trying to do so for a couple of years now? And are we going to see Russian CapEx trending towards 22% only for this year or also going forward? Thank you so much.

Alex, why don't you start?

Okay. Cesar, thank you. Let me start. Now on -- so if you look at our EBITDA performance for this quarter, I mean, there were also a number of the certain provisions one, there were one-off reversals of certain provisions previously so that affected it. However, we also reduced our commercial cost, because we have closed down 120 shops and that clearly affected the performance of the EBITDA positively. Going forward as we said, I mean, we are committed to improve the EBITDA margin and the cost intensity by one percentage point. So, clearly that target has not changed. Now on the second question about the CapEx, the -- as we guided for the long-term LTM CapEx revenue for the full year will be about 20%. That does include the ROI. However, we will do in Russia whatever is necessary for us to fix the gaps, which we feel this will exist in the market. Now we have addressed this issue. As I said the LTE base stations just in this quarter rate grew about 43%. So clearly we are very much on track to addressing all kind of performance gaps we might still have in the market. And we will look at the targeted investment in order to bring up the speed the coverage and the capacity in the areas where we feel it is most needed.

Thank you. If you just allow me a follow-up sir for the housekeeping question. But would you please disclose what was the EBITDA margin in Russia or the change in EBITDA margin in Russia excluding the -- this provision reversal? Murat Kirkgözis: The impact in Russia is close to -- in the south of RUB 1 billion in the quarter three reversal bad debts and all the related provisions that were reversed.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Slava Degtyarev of Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.

Yes. Thanks for the presentation. Also a question on Russia. What's the strategy for the distribution improvements in the company? Do you aim to continue reducing the number of stores broadly at a similar pace meaning around 120 stores per quarter? Thank you.

Unit.

So, on Russia I mean, it's a two-pronged question I would say. One is that as you know the distribution system or network if you wish for all the players is very inefficient. So we are very much welcoming the moves by all the other players in the market to also reduce their footprint. I think recently the MTS again repeated that they will be reducing their footprint in the market. We also show that we are optimizing our network 120 stores down just in this quarter. So clearly that process will continue. Our general aim is to convert so to say the stores -- the inefficient stores to much more efficient ones close down with the ones, which are less efficient and move generally to more digital more online sales. That will be our long-term goal.

I was going to add something, but I think Alex covered it all. It's optimizing distribution as much as it is optimizing the cost.

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Alexander Vengranovich of Renaissance. Please ask your question.

Yes. Good afternoon. Just two questions. So, first one again a follow-up on the distribution in Russia, based on what you've seen over the third quarter have you already started to see that your competitors follow your movement with regards to the optimization of the distribution? Or it's just worth at this stage and you're probably the first one on the market to start really optimizing the number of the stores? That's the first question. And the second question is on Uzbekistan surprisingly. I've noticed that, there is a sequential – quite substantial decrease of number of the subscribers in Uzbekistan over the last two quarters. Just wanted to understand whether there are any specific reasons for that or there are any one-offs there. Thank you.

On the distribution, I mean, it's difficult to comment what the competition does. Clearly, we need to wait when they will announce on the actual numbers. However just referring again to MTS, they announced or they declared that they would be looking at reduction of the distribution footprint by up to I think 300 stores already last quarter and also before. So I think we will see once the numbers were reported, what is the actual so to say reduction there. But in general, I would say that trend clearly towards more sales to the monobrand shops and optimization of the model branch. And here for instance, one other thing which I would mention is that it's us also changing the KPIs and looking at the long-term value of subscriber as the main KPI for signing new subscribers. It's the key for the overall market to cut down the overall footprint on the distribution side. So I don't think that, I can say more on that one at the moment. In Uzbekistan, we basically have been focusing very much on the value. So, in that sense we have deliberately in some way let go to some of the low-end subscribers and the value focus actually worked out very well for us. We saw that the organic growth of the revenues have been very robust and – however, going forward given again the competition is quite irrational in Uzbekistan, we will be reviewing and revising our tariff plans, and our pricing model in order to be a bit more competitive in the market. However, there was nothing else, but our focus on the value customers in this quarter.

Okay.

Thank you. Operator?

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your last question comes from the line of Ondrej Cabejšek of UBS. Please ask your question. Ondrej Cabejšek: Hi. Hello. Thank you. I've got two questions please. The first one on Russia, if you could just explain a bit how you're thinking in terms of balancing the cuts in the commercial costs like you're saying with apparently within market share. And I guess, what I'm aiming at is wouldn't it be better to wait with cutting commercial cost only after you've fixed some of the network issues that I think are partly to blame for the market share losses? And then the second question on Pakistan, if you could just please break down the impact of – well, the one impact of the reversal of the charges when you credit to them to customers what impact of the overall decline there was attributable to book to this one-off? Thank you.

Ondrej let me take the first one. So in general I agree the network should proceed to any other so to say changes. However, the strategy in Russia is not just the distribution network of course, it's also pricing. So we have of course the background of pricing being very much due to the unlimited prices. However, we have been also changing our pricing model as well. I don't know, if you saw our new bundles in the market, I mean, they're much more geared again towards the value if you wish. Now specifically on the commercial side, I think that cutting commercial cost is not a goal. It is just follows through the fact that we want to optimize our distribution footprint and distribution network and we are just closing down the inefficient shops or repositioning them. So that is driving the reduction of commercial costs. It's not a deliberate cost-cutting exercise from our side. We are very committed to sort of boost our presence in the market. So indeed in that way, the network investments come first and then of course all our commercial activities follow through that.

Let me address the second part of the question. In particular reversal had a $14 million impact to Q3 results, while the tax and fees or the changes in the fee structure will have a continuous impact in the remaining two, three quarters more on a year-over-year comparative basis. For Q3, the impact was $14 million. Ondrej Cabejšek: That's 4-0, yes?

1-4, 1-4. Ondrej Cabejšek: 1-4. And this effect will not be carried over into the fourth quarter, because there's this 45 days of the validity of the reversal that you mentioned? Is this also –

We totally have $26 million of reversals of which $14 million is being recorded into Q3 and about $12 million would be affected partially into Q4. However, we anticipate a big chunk of this Q4 impact to be offset with the use of these services within the Q4 so to be not having a full impact on sub line in Q4. Ondrej Cabejšek: All right. That's clear. Thank you very much.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

If there are no more questions, thank you very much everyone for dialing in. If you do have any more questions please just reach out to us. Thank you very much. Good day.