VEON Ltd is about to sell the Armenian branch
VEON is about to sell the Armenian branch to people, who have been involved in the corruption deals in Armenia.
NASDAQ and Euronext Amsterdam-listed multinational telecom operator VEON reportedly aims to sell its Beeline-branded Armenian division to recently founded Team Telecom Armenia, which hasn’t started any operations yet in the telecommunication industry of Armenia. The owner of Team Telecom Armenia is Hayk Yesayan, former CEO of Ucom (one of the Armenian telecommunication operators) and current shareholder of 6 % of total shares of the Ucom.
Anonymous insiders are claiming that Yesayan Hayk and his brother are facing criminal case No. 62208119, initiated by the National Security Service of Republic of Armenia, where they together with Gagik Khachatryan's family (Gagik Khachatryan is former Minister of Finance of the Republic of Armenia) are accused in being involved in some corruption scheme leading to embezzlement of state funds.
Yesayan brothers were officials (shareholders and top management positions in Ucom and IU Networks LLC) in the organizations which were involved in money laundering scheme resulting in approximately 3M USD damage of state budget. Yesayan’ and Gagik Khachatryan family’s Canadian and UAE partners' accounts have been also used in that scheme.
Hayk Yesayan as an owner of the Team Telecom Armenia is with exploratory talks on a potential sale reportedly during in last three months with VEON Amsterdam B.V. and informed the Armenian mass media about finalizing the deal and its confirmation from VEON Amsterdam B.V.
Over the past two years, the new government of Armenia is fighting against the previous oligarchic regime and trying to return the funds stolen from the state. And this scheme is considered to be another corrupted deal where Team Armenia Telecom plays a crucial role.
Today, in Armenia, society is wondering: how it comes that a businessman like Hayk Yesayan, who worked for the oligarchs of the former regime and had been fed by that regime, can negotiate deals with internationally sound companies. This may obviously influence the reputation of such a company and moreover affects its indicator in the stock market.
Maybe VEON top management is not fully aware of the above-described situation or is not willing to know?
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