VEON confirms unhindered trading of its shares, offers support to its investors

Amsterdam, 6 September 2023 – VEON Ltd. (NASDAQ: VEON, Euronext Amsterdam: VEON), a global digital operator that provides converged connectivity and online services (“the Company”), announces that it has issued a CEO Letter to current and potential investors, confirming the unhindered trading of its shares and offering the Company’s support to investors if they experience arbitrary obstacles to trading.

In the letter, shared with the investor community on 5 September 2023, VEON Group CEO noted the following:

“Dear Valued Investors,

I am writing this letter to you to address some stock market observations that have recently come to our attention. We have noted that the trading volumes of our shares are unusually low, and have received reports suggesting that certain brokers are arbitrarily declining orders to purchase VEON shares.

Allow me to reiterate once more that VEON is a global company, headquartered in Amsterdam, and listed on NASDAQ and Euronext Amsterdam stock exchanges. We have no majority or ultimate controlling shareholder, and, as a publicly traded company, we have a diverse investor base including US, EU and UK investors.  Independent directors make up the majority of VEON’s Board of Directors and we have a multinational management team. We operate in 6 emerging markets including Ukraine and continue to deliver accelerating growth with our digital operators that serve nearly 160 million customers with connectivity and digital services. We are also in the final stages of our exit from Russia, originally announced on November 24^th, 2022, and continue to engage proactively with our counterparts to close this sale process.

Let me also clarify once again that VEON Group has not been targeted by US, EU, or UK sanctions at any point since the onset of the conflict in February 2022. Over the course of the past 18 months, we have communicated that we have received various regulatory approvals and licenses from US, UK and EU authorities, adding further clarity and transparency to the trading status of our shares, and enabling the completion of several key liquidity projects, including our Scheme of Arrangement in 2023, extending the maturities of our 2023 bonds. Among these regulatory authorizations, the two licenses issued by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) - General License 54 issued on on November 18th, 2022, and General License 54A issued on January 17th, 2023 - are also publicly available documents.