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biometrics platform. The company is now headquartered in the Netherlands. Interna is committed to acquire a 100% equity stake in VisionLabs from existing shareholders.
● Wildberries
Tatyana Bakalchuk, founder and general director of Russian online retailer Wildberries, has outstripped the global billionaires in 2021 by the growth of her fortune that soared by more than 1,000%, Forbes reported late on Wednesday. Forbes said that her fortune grew, among others, thanks to revaluation of Wildberries after its main rival Ozon held a successful initial public offering. In August, Bakalchuk debuted in topping the rating of Russia’s 25 richest women with US $13bn.
● Other
Rostelecom has entered into a legally binding agreement with VEB Ventures to acquire a stake in Atlas and to develop the backbone fiber-optic communication line TEA NEXT (Transit Europe – Asia). The construction of TEA NEXT’s main segment should start in 2022. Rostelecom and VEB Ventures are expected to each invest c. RUB 6bn in Atlas during the initial stage, and an external group of investors could join the project soon. We see the news as neutral for Rostelecom at this stage, although we think the project could become supportive of Rostelecom’s investment case in the mid-term.
9.2.8 Telecoms corporate news
VEON held an investor day on December 7 and the management noted that the company aims to lift the revenue and EBITDA CAGRs to 10-14% over the next three years in local-currency terms (up from the high-single-digit growth guided for this year).
This local-currency growth corresponds to mid-single-digit CAGRs in dollar terms. The EBITDA margin is set to widen 3 pp over the next three years thanks to a group-wide cost efficiency program. Meanwhile, the company intends to bring capex as a share of revenues down to 20% by 2024 (versus the 22-24% guided for this year).
In Russia, the company assumes that revenue growth will be driven mainly by continuing investment in network quality, which should improve the NPS and lead to subscriber base growth. In Pakistan, revenue growth will be supported by the ongoing development of digital products, including JazzCash, which is already the largest e-wallet in the country, and Tamasha, the OTT streaming platform with
118 RUSSIA Country Report January 2022 www.intellinews.com