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January 2021 www.intellinews.com I Page 17
Analysts welcome veteran VC investor Boguslavsky on VEON's board
Russian mobile major VEON (former VimpelCom) has announced that Leonid Boguslavsky will be joining the company’s board of directors, following the December 2020 departure of Mariano de Beer chairing VEON’s digital committee.
"Mr. Boguslavsky is a well-known VC investor and the founder of the VC firm RTP Global. He was one of the first investors in Yandex, Ozon, Delivery Hero, RingCentral, EPAM, Datadog and other tech firms," Sova Capital commented on January 18.
The analysts see the appointment as positive for VEON, given Boguslavsky’s extensive experience in the TMT space, and remind that VEON now has a board of directors and a group executive committee after it eliminated its two-tier board structure.
Sova reiterated a Hold rating on VEON's shares, which trade at an estimated 2020-2021 Enterprise Value/Ebitda of 3.8x-3.6x.
As reported by bne IntelliNews, VEON reported its local currency revenue decline of 1% year on year in 3Q20 under IFRS and Ebitda decline of 3%, while booking a net $620mn net loss for the quarter. Still, the results exceeded expectations and were met positively by the analysts.
Estonian startup Fairown Finance raises over €1mn
A fund of the German commercial bank Commerzbank and the Austrian investor network Primecrowd has invested over €1mn in Estonian fintech startup Fairown Finance.
"In less than two years, we were able to create
a profitable company, enter six markets and generate a revenue of €1.2 million," Fairown CEO Hendrik Roosna said in a press release.
Founded in 2018, Fairown is an Estonian startup that enables brands and retailers to offer products as a service, that is on a monthly subscription basis, with the help of a plug and play solution, accelerating the launch of the service.
According to the company, the new generation of consumers has started to value more and more quick access to products over ownership rights, which led to the transformation of several areas, such as music and film.
Regulatory initiatives such as the European Union's Green Deal are also bringing this trend to physical goods, as companies need to move from a linear to a circular model.
Fairown currently operates in the Nordic and Baltic countries and offers its services to industries such as electronics, horticulture and luxury goods.
With the money raised, Fairown plans further product development and international expansion into larger European markets, such as France, the United Kingdom and Germany. The startup has already signed a cooperation agreement with a German retailer.
Russian companies pan the CBR’s plans for a digital ruble
Russia’s central bank (CBR) has received feedback from the financial sector on its plans to create
a digital ruble, and the responses have not been positive, FPRI BMB Russia reported on January 14.
Industry participants have two main critiques of the proposal. First, the CBR lacks a specific goal for introducing the digital currency. Second, it hasn’t clearly outlined the impact of a digital ruble on
the banking sector. Some noteworthy effects that market participants mentioned include a potential squeeze in financial sector liquidity and a decline in the competitiveness of commercial Russian banks.
How this feedback will change the CBR’s plans is