EBRD and IFC to provide $435 mln for Ukraine’s newly merged telecoms firm
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corporation will fund Ukraine’s newly merged telecoms company with $435 million, the lenders said on Thursday.
The project is the largest direct foreign investment of the war unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A consortium of investors led by French billionaire Xavier Niel announced last month the completion of a transaction to acquire and merge Ukraine’s Lifecell mobile operator with the country’s Datagroup-Volia service provider.
The EBRD and IFC will each provide $217.5 million to help finance the acquisition, Holger Muent, EBRD’s director of telecommunications, media and technology, told Reuters.
“That is the game changer,” he said in an interview online, confirming earlier plans to make the investment.
“It will create the second-largest operator of that kind in the country and that leads to higher speed, better coverage, lower energy consumption for the network, and more redundancy in the network as well.”
Ukraine’s largest telecoms provider is Kyivstar, which is owned by the Amsterdam-listed VEON.
The consortium is led by NJJ, a French telecoms investment holding company owned by Niel. NJJ has partnered with Horizon Capital, a leading Ukraine-based private equity fund, and Mykhailo Shelemba, former CEO of Datagroup-Volia, now CEO of the newly merged group.
