Good afternoon and good morning, everyone. Welcome to VEON's Second Quarter Results Presentation for the period ending 30 June 2022. I'm Nik Kershaw of VEON's Investor Relations. I'm pleased to be joined on the line today by Kaan Terzioğlu, our Group CEO; along with our Group CFO, Serkan Okandan. Today's presentation will begin with the key highlights and business update from Kaan. Following this, Serkan will discuss the detailed financial results and then hand it back to Kaan to discuss our outlook and priorities for the rest of the year. Before getting started, I'd like to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements during today's presentation, which involves certain risks and uncertainties. Certain factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those 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 includes reconciliations of non-IFRS financial measures presented today can be downloaded from our website. With that, let me hand over to Kaan. Kaan Terzioğlu: Thank you, Nik. Good morning all and welcome to the presentation of our second quarter results. The second quarter of this year has been a time where we have seen the full weight of the current geopolitical challenges. So our teams have shown an exceptional focus and our business as a whole has shown impressive resilience as we are about to share with you in today's presentation. Before we delve into the numbers, I would like to thank all our team and especially our colleagues in Ukraine who are keeping Kyivstar's customers and the broader communities connected at home and abroad. I would like to also thank our shareholders and investors for their continued confidence in…

Thanks, Kaan. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. In the following slides, I will elaborate on the financial highlights for our second quarter and first half year results in more detail. For the first half of 2022, we reported solid local currency growth in both revenues and EBITDA. Service revenues and EBITDA were up by 8.2% and 9.9% year-over-year, respectively. As we noted with our first quarter results, CapEx for this year will be lower than we originally anticipated and also lower than last year. For the first 6 months, CapEx was USD750 million, down by 14.7% year-over-year. The higher reported EBITDA and lower CapEx compared to last year resulted in USD550 million unlevered free cash flow whereas EFCF for the first six months was approximately breakeven. Moving to Slide 20, which covers the same metrics, but for the second quarter alone. Similar to the half year results, we saw strong local currency performance in both revenues and EBITDA with the same trends in CapEx and cash flow. On the coming slides, I will discuss the quarterly performance in more detail. Moving first to revenues on Slide 21. Second quarter showed solid service revenue performance across all our markets especially with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, all delivering double-digit growth. In Ukraine, we achieved 3.9% year-over-year revenue growth despite the current operating environment. And as mentioned by Kaan, this is a testament to our team in Ukraine. In Russia, reported revenue was negatively impacted by lower handset sales due to supply chain issues while service revenues were up by 2.4% year-over-year. Our non-telco related revenues in Russia constitute 8% of total group reported revenue. In Pakistan, revenues were up by 11.1% year-over-year. The strong revenue growth in Pakistan comes despite changes in taxation legislation and the reduction in mobile…

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks very much for your time again. We've received a number of questions ahead of time and also a number have come through on Zoom while we've been talking. The one question that has come up multiple times, including actually from Snowcap, from Barclays and also a number of people on Zoom, Serkan capital decline. Just confirm again the status on the Algeria put option and really just an update on timing there? Kaan Terzioğlu: Thank you for the question. As we have informed you in the last call as well, the evaluation process of our stake in Djezzy has been totally completed in line with the shareholders' agreements and we are waiting to receive cash, as of now which we have not received, but there are no open issues or conflicts as we speak. We hope to complete the transaction once we receive the cash in our accounts.

And then Serkan, a question for you from Cyrus. I mean, would you consider buying back the 2023 bonds given the current pricing and any plans around those bonds?

Since the beginning of this year, our focus is to keep a strong liquidity position at the HQ level and as a result of this focus, we built up USD1.9 billion available liquidity at the HQ level as of now. Having said that, in the meantime we are also currently evaluating various options around our total debt structure in a holistic manner.

Then from [Monika] Asset Management. Kaan, what is the current position of VEON given the statement we've seen on Bloomberg around sanctions? Kaan Terzioğlu: Let me be very open. VEON is currently not the target of U.S., EU or U.K. sanction laws. We are aware that Bloomberg has opined that our securities might be subject to U.S. sanctions or restrictions. We did not have an advanced notice on this and our legal team is assessing the impact of Bloomberg's opinion. We are fully committed and we are in compliance with all applicable sanction laws and we are looking into this issue with our legal team to carefully review the full range of options to enable VEON to address this matter.

And then a question from Prosperity again for you, Kaan. What is the situation with the CapEx rollout in Russia, particularly given that we've seen some of the other operators have commented that they've procured a lot of CapEx ahead of time? Can you maybe just update us on the CapEx plans around Russia? Kaan Terzioğlu: I cannot of course comment on other operators. But the last 2 years for us was heavy investment years in terms of modernizing our network, which allowed us to have the most modern and new network available. The current export controls will be impacting all operators at an equal way. So I do not see this as a potential competitive dynamics changing issue.

Then a couple of questions from Shark Capital. The first one is what can VEON do to unlock further value for the group? Kaan Terzioğlu: And my sincere thanks to Shark Capital and their continued support for us. Let me maybe take point by point. First on Algeria. As I mentioned, the final closing of the transaction will happen on the receipt of our cash settlement. We are expecting $682 million and the procedure is on track and hopefully will be materializing soon. I have also mentioned that our strategy in terms of becoming an asset-light company and our towers that we hold in multiple jurisdictions represent a serious opportunity for us to monetize certain sleeping assets in our balance sheet and we are on track with these transactions and hope to report news on the next 12 months. We also consider optimizing our portfolio based on the criteria we have in terms of markets that we want to be operating. As you noticed, we are specialized in large population, significantly low penetration of 4G and smartphone penetration and access to adjacent markets like financial services, entertainment services, health care and education is in place. And we will be looking, optimizing our portfolio for the markets that do not fit into that. So you might see also certain portfolio changes as we progress and we will of course keep you up to date. As also we look into our markets, the digital assets that we own represent significant opportunities. Whether in fintech area or entertainment area, the businesses that we have like JazzCash, like Tamasha, like Toffee represents significant values and we will be also looking for strategic partnerships in these areas that will generate liquidity for our company. We also continue to consider strategic options in relation to our portfolio to unlock value that will benefit our stakeholders. We would like to highlight that it is our ultimate responsibility and accountability and we are committed to creating value for our shareholders and protect the rights of our creditors and continue executing on our strategy of growth. At this point, I would like to stop there.

Kaan, could you also maybe comment around the ability to increase prices, particularly if you look at a market like Pakistan where the inflation is so high? Kaan Terzioğlu: I'm glad to report to you that about two days ago we had the special approval also from the regulator in Pakistan to adjust our pricing reflecting the increases in the cost structures. An overall average price increase of 14% will allow us to catch up with the inflation. But I would like to highlight that we are extremely disciplined on inflationary pricing and we consider pricing power as one of the key criteria to stay and to function in the markets that we operate. From that perspective, I take that news very positive in Pakistan.

Serkan, this is from [XO]. Have you been able to make coupon payments from Russia on the intercompany debt?

Yes, Nik. We have been able to receiving the interest payments from our Russian subsidiary when they became due and this is being done by following the official process in Russia, which means by applying a license from the Ministry of Finance in Russia. But so far, we haven't experienced any problem with that.

And then, Kaan, back to you. Question from a number of people as well and also from Barclays. Can you just maybe comment on the process to separate out Kazakhstan? Kaan Terzioğlu: Sure. As we discussed in Q1 update as well, our operating subsidiary in Kazakhstan is indeed currently held through our company VimpelCom in Russia. As we have been simplifying our group structure, we have already taken ownership of Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan from VimpelCom and we are already in the process of also doing the same for Kazakhstan.

Thanks very much. I think for now that's all we have time for. I know there have been a number of other questions that have come through on Zoom. I will get back to everyone individually. And if there's further questions, please feel free to reach out. Thank you very much, everyone, for dialing in and thanks for your time. Kaan Terzioğlu: Thank you.

Thank you.