Vodafone Ukraine will be bought by Bakcell from Azerbaijan

The Antimonopoly Committee gave permission to Bakcell from Azerbaijan to buy the second largest mobile operator in Ukraine - Vodafon Ukraine.
“They gave permission to TOV Bucksell for the purchase of Vodafon Ukraine,” he said.

“The Antimonopoly Committee has granted permission of BAKCELL LLC (Baku, Azerbaijan) for the indirect acquisition of shares of Preludium B.V. “(City of Amsterdam, the Netherlands), which ensures the excess of 50% of the votes in the supreme governing body of the company.

This will allow the Azerbaijani company to acquire indirect control over the Ukrainian mobile operator, known under the brand name "Vodafone".

Bakcell is a mobile operator and a leading provider of mobile Internet in Azerbaijan. It was founded in 1994 and was a joint venture between the government and the private Israeli company GTIB.

Now there is no exact information in open sources who is the main owner of Bakcell.

Bakcell network, consisting of more than 7.5 thousand base stations, covers 93% of the territory (excluding occupied territories) and 99% of the population of Azerbaijan. The company serves more than 3 million people.

Vodafone Ukraine serves 19.7 million subscribers. The net profit of VF Ukraine in 2018 amounted to 1.8 billion UAH, revenue - 12.8 billion UAH.

The company is part of the MTS group (through two intermediate legal entities - the Luxembourg Allegretto Holding S.a.r.l. and the Dutch Preludium B.V.), in which the Russian businessman Vladimir Yevtushenkov is the majority shareholder.
The business of MTS in Ukraine, the head of the analytical department of Concorde Capital, Alexander Parashchiy, recently estimated at 1.2-1.3 billion dollars.