Summary

Samit Umatiya’s core pitch is that VEON (about $51, Nasdaq) is a sum-of-the-parts mispricing: its 84.6% stake in a listed subsidiary—called Kcell in his initial SOTP math and Kyivstar in the subsequent discussion—is valued at about $2.8B against roughly $4.9B of group EV. That leaves about $2.1B of EV for Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, the digital platform, fintech and enterprise technology. Those four markets generated about $3.24B of 2025 revenue and are growing mid- to high-teens; all but Bangladesh grew in both local-currency and U.S.-dollar terms. A conservative 1× revenue multiple makes the four non-Ukraine markets alone worth about 66% of total EV.
The upside math runs to roughly 4×: Q1 2026 equity free cash flow was $246M, which Umatiya says could conservatively imply a run rate of roughly $1B or more, in line with management’s 2027 target of $900M–$1B. At 15× free cash flow, that implies about $15B of equity value. He argues the multiple is defensible only if VEON is viewed as a technology company rather than a telecom: digital is about 25% of revenue now, with management guiding to about 50% in four years. “You don’t have to believe in a perfect outcome.”
JazzCash is the next potential crystallization catalyst: it processes about $60B in transaction value, or roughly 15% of Pakistan’s GDP, and has never been independently valued. Pakistan digital-financial-services revenue rose from $156M in 2023 to $277M in 2024 and $377M in 2025, all in U.S. dollars. JazzCash had been issuing about 200,000 nano-loans daily and is applying for a full digital-banking license to unlock wealth management and remittances, which Umatiya claims represent about 30% of Pakistan’s GDP. Management has discussed a strategic investment, spin-off, IPO or another form of monetization, following the Kyivstar listing.
Andrew Walker’s sharpest pushback is the Kaspi precedent: Kazakhstan’s dominant super app was described as growing organically by 15%–25%, generating cash flow and paying dividends, yet without the multiple expansion bulls expected; Walker estimated it at a little over 1× revenue. Umatiya’s answer is the “AI 1440” frame: in frontier markets, AI can create access to services rather than merely improve efficiency. Localized models such as Kaza LLM are handling about 1M customer journeys per month, which he views as a sovereign AI moat that global telecoms may struggle to replicate.
Walker also stress-tested Starlink and telecom history: his worst case is that national operators are required to rebuild rural networks while customers prefer Starlink, leaving them with the capex but none of the associated revenue. Umatiya sees Starlink as more partner than competitor, while acknowledging he could be wrong; VEON has Starlink partnerships, and Kyivstar’s bundled healthcare, ride-hailing, fintech and entertainment services create stickiness. Multiplay users have 66% higher retention than voice-only users.
The elephant is the 45.5% stake tied to LetterOne beneficial owners whom Umatiya describes as sanctioned by the EU, U.S. and Ukraine. He says he has heard nothing substantive from IR, management or in one-on-one conversations and answers, “I wish I knew the answer to that.” Walker notes that 45% is only 5.1% from control, but also floats a hypothetical in which VEON uses $500M after a JazzCash monetization to retire the block for about $900M versus a stated value of roughly $1.3B. He cites NAEVIAS as an example of a company buying back stock cheaply from sanctioned holders.
Umatiya’s risk framing is that geopolitical chaos “is a feature, not a flaw” of VEON: Pakistan cycled through 10 prime ministers in 15 years and VEON still grew; median ages are about 22–29 across its markets versus about 40 in America, while only about 34% of people over 15 have a formal bank account. Net debt excluding leases is about 1.0–1.1× EBITDA, a $100M buyback is under way, and CEO Terzioglu owns about 1%. Umatiya says Terzioglu implemented a similar digital-operator model at Turkcell.

Deep dive

1. The setup: a complex emerging-market telecom with listed-stake and digital optionality

Walker’s central frame is a sum-of-the-parts opportunity in a U.S.-listed stock trading around $51: VEON has a large listed subsidiary stake and several emerging-market operating businesses, but also a history of value destruction and the difficulty of investing in emerging-market telecom.
Umatiya’s history lesson: VEON was formed in 1991 as VimpelCom by Chicago-born Augie Fabela and Soviet scientist Dr. Dmitri Zimin, with Fabela’s stated aim of creating “a platform… that allows for the circulation of free speech” in the Soviet Union. It went public in 1995 as what he believes was the first Russian company listed on the NYSE, reached 18 countries by 2011, then deleveraged through divestitures including Algeria and Italy. Russia was exited roughly three years ago.
His thesis on why it screens badly: telecoms carry a “low-growth, low-return-on-invested-capital stigma,” and an emerging- or frontier-market company attracts little attention amid the AI hype. Those are precisely the areas where Umatiya says he looks for mispricing.

2. How the idea was found — and why coverage is sparse

The first exposure came through a risk screener while researching a Ukrainian investment. Umatiya believed the eventual end of the war would create a major reconstruction tailwind, then found Himanshu Shah of Shah Capital Management’s mid-2022 letter to management advocating tower and other asset monetizations. VEON was about 17%–18% of that portfolio then and, Umatiya says, about 40% more recently.
Walker says VEON had been a popular sum-of-the-parts pitch among value investors before the Russian invasion, but afterward he mostly heard about Kyivstar in SPAC circles rather than VEON itself.
Umatiya agrees the silence is real. He says the first public write-up he saw was a recent Value Investors Club piece on Kyivstar and attributes the lack of research to the complexity of VEON’s five emerging markets and its sum-of-the-parts analysis.

3. The SOTP math — and Walker’s EV bridge

Umatiya’s initial stack-up values VEON’s 84.6% stake in a listed subsidiary at about $2.8B against group EV of roughly $4.9B. The transcript calls this stake Kcell in the initial calculation and later refers to it as Kyivstar. The residual assets—Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, digital platforms, fintech and enterprise technology—are described as about $700M of equity value, or roughly $2.1B of EV, with the four markets producing $3.24B of 2025 revenue.
Walker’s challenge is that his own preparation produced nearly $8B of EV: 75M shares at about $50, roughly $4B of noncurrent debt, $1B of current debt and $1.7B of cash.
Umatiya’s Q4 bridge uses a $3.4B market cap plus $1.7B of net debt for $5.1B of EV, then subtracts roughly $2B for VEON’s stake in Kyivstar, producing about $3.1B of residual holdco EV. Walker accepts that this is a holdco calculation that values the listed stake at market price rather than estimating its intrinsic value.

4. JazzCash and the case for valuing beyond telecom revenue

Walker questions valuing a telecom on revenue. Umatiya’s reframe is that the telecom label creates a valuation lag: digital revenue is about 25% of VEON’s total today, and management guides to about 50% in four years. He says VEON should be viewed more as a technology company than a legacy telecom.
JazzCash is the clearest example. It processes about $60B in transactions, or roughly 15% of Pakistan’s GDP, is growing at double-digit rates and has never been independently valued. Umatiya points to MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Africa’s fintech businesses, which attracted strategic investors at premiums to the implied values of their telecom parents.
Management acknowledged in its 2024 capital-markets materials that it wanted to crystallize value through a strategic investor, spin-off, IPO or another structure. Umatiya expects JazzCash to be the next major potential catalyst after the listed-subsidiary transaction.
Walker corroborates the growth with 20-F figures for Pakistan digital financial services: $156M in 2023, $277M in 2024 and $377M in 2025, all in U.S. dollars. He recalls a similar Airtel thesis that looked too simple until the fintech received a valuation mark.
One caveat remains: Walker cannot separate organic digital growth from bolt-on acquisitions, and Umatiya says the 20-F does not make that distinction clear.

5. The 4× case: cash flow, balance sheet and trapped cash

Q1 2026 group equity free cash flow was $246M. Umatiya explicitly cautions against simply annualizing one quarter, but says a conservative run rate would be roughly $1B or more, compared with management’s 2027 target of $900M–$1B. At 15× free cash flow, he gets about $15B of implied equity value, roughly four times the current value.
Net debt excluding leases is about 1.0–1.1× EBITDA, which Umatiya calls unusually clean for a business operating across complicated emerging and frontier markets. Management has also initiated a $100M buyback, and collective management ownership is about 1.7%–1.8%.
Walker raises the Liberty Global-style holdco problem of capital controls trapping operating-company cash. Umatiya says Ukraine’s martial-law restrictions limited upstreaming to roughly $1M per month, which was immaterial for a multibillion-dollar company and especially damaging when VEON had more debt and a smaller digital mix.
He now views VEON as cash-heavy and says Ukrainian capital controls are temporary, making their end a question of when rather than if. He argues the growth and secular tailwinds outweigh the regulatory hurdles, while acknowledging the company’s geography remains complicated.

6. What the market may be missing — demographics and Starlink

Walker asks why the market is not recognizing the opportunity despite past J.P. Morgan coverage, New Street Research interest and what he thinks were five analysts asking questions on the Q1 call.
Umatiya’s answer is underpenetration and demographics: average ages are about 29 in Kazakhstan, 27 in Uzbekistan, 26 in Bangladesh and 22 in Pakistan, versus about 40 in America. Barely half of the footprint uses the internet, about 34% of people over 15 have a formal bank account, and only about one-third of adults have ever sent or received a digital payment.
Walker’s Starlink worst case is that national operators must rebuild rural Ukrainian networks while customers choose satellite service instead: “you have all the capex and you have none of the associated revenue.”
Umatiya sees Starlink as more likely to be a partner than a competitor, while saying he could be wrong. He says VEON has Starlink partnerships, that much Ukrainian tower infrastructure has been destroyed and that about 5% of the power grid has been destroyed. He also says VEON invested about $1.3B between 2023 and 2026, $300M more than its capital-markets target.
The stickiness argument is that Kyivstar is not only a telecom service: subscribers may also use healthcare, Uklon ride-hailing, entertainment and fintech. Multiplay users have 66% higher retention than voice-only users. Walker agrees Starlink has little chance in cities but continues to view rural postwar reconstruction as the key risk.

7. The Kaspi problem, “AI 1440” and telecom skepticism

Walker’s strongest digital pushback is Kaspi, Kazakhstan’s dominant super app. He describes it as growing organically by roughly 15%–25%, generating significant cash flow and paying a dividend, yet remaining roughly flat-ish over several years without the multiple expansion many bulls expected. He estimates it trades at a little over 1× revenue.
Umatiya says the “pot of gold” for Kaspi investors may still be ahead, then offers VEON’s “AI 1440” strategy: the 1,440 minutes in a day during which VEON wants to remain relevant.
His distinction is that in mature markets AI may make a lawyer or doctor 10%–30% more efficient, while in rural frontier markets it can provide a farmer with access to a doctor, loan officer or agricultural expert for the first time. He describes this as “infinite marginal utility.”
VEON is developing localized models such as Kaza LLM and says they are already serving about 1M customer journeys per month in rural areas. Umatiya views this local linguistic and cultural knowledge as a sovereign AI moat that global operators such as AT&T or Vodafone may struggle to replicate.
On data demand, Umatiya initially cites roughly 7GB per month in frontier markets versus about 21–22GB in America; Walker disputes the U.S. figure and points to roughly 600GB of customer-level broadband usage in OpenVault data, with an earlier reference to Comcast and Charter figures around 800GB. He emphasizes that those are broadband, not mobile, figures.
Walker’s broader skepticism remains: AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity did not create durable value, and he feels telecom companies have repeatedly bungled growth opportunities outside their core network businesses.

8. Catalyst sequencing, the LetterOne overhang and management

Umatiya views the Kyivstar IPO as priority one and JazzCash as the next major value-unlocking step. A full digital-banking license could add wealth management and remittances, which he claims represent about 30% of Pakistan’s GDP. Before receiving the license, JazzCash had been issuing about 200,000 nano-loans per day of roughly $30–$50.
He says the same monetization approach could eventually apply to Banglalink and other digital verticals, with each step reducing VEON’s conglomerate discount over the next three or four years.
The central risk is the 45.5% of VEON shares tied to LetterOne beneficial owners whom Umatiya describes as sanctioned by the EU, U.S. and Ukraine. He says the October 2023 Russia exit involved an accounting reclassification with about $3.4B of currency-translation losses. He has heard no substantive position from IR, management or his one-on-one conversations about the block.
Umatiya nevertheless calls the geopolitical exposure “a feature, not a flaw.” He cites Pakistan’s 10 prime ministers in 15 years and says VEON continued to grow despite political turmoil and currency debasement. Bangladesh is the only geography he identifies as not having grown, which he attributes to civil unrest and currency weakness; he expects a rebound but says the broader issues may not be resolved within two or three years.
Walker emphasizes that 45% is only 5.1% short of control and could create a strange ownership situation if sanctions were lifted. He also floats, as a hypothetical rather than a forecast, using $500M after a JazzCash IPO to buy the block for about $900M against a stated value of roughly $1.3B, citing NAEVIAS’s ability to buy back stock cheaply from sanctioned holders.
On management, Umatiya credits CEO Terzioglu with backing the AI 1440 strategy, owning about 1% and implementing a similar digital-operator model at Turkcell. He also views VEON’s experience operating through Russian divestiture, Pakistani inflation and Bangladeshi political turmoil as part of its organizational moat.
Walker closes with a GE comparison: he recalls skeptics doubting Larry Culp’s breakup plan, while GE Vernova later appeared to be worth “like 5×” what the whole company had traded for at the time. He sees similar spin-out optionality in VEON, with the caveat that its assets are in emerging markets.

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