VimpelCom Says U.S., Dutch Authorities Probe Its Uzbekistan Unit

VimpelCom Ltd. (VIP) said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Dutch authorities have requested documents as part of a global probe into the wireless operator’s business in Uzbekistan. The carrier, controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, received a letter yesterday from the SEC stating it is looking into VimpelCom’s operations, the company said in a statement. VimpelCom’s headquarters in Amsterdam was raided by the Dutch public prosecutor’s office, which took papers and said the carrier was the the focus of a criminal investigation in the Netherlands. “The investigations appear to be concerned with the company’s operations in Uzbekistan,” VimpelCom said in the statement. VimpelCom, part-owned by Norway’s Telenor ASA (TEL), said it plans to fully cooperate with these investigations. In 2012, VimpelCom received about $463 million in revenue from Uzbekistan, or less than 2 percent of total sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. VimpelCom Last week reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $2.66 billion after writing down its Ukraine assets by $2.1 billion because of the country’s political turmoil. The operator is struggling to cut its $27.5 billion debt which resulted from an acquisition of telecommunications assets in Italy, Algeria and Asia about three years ago.

Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

A visitor uses a smartphone while passing an advertisement outside the VimpelCom Ltd....Read More

An official at the Dutch prosecutor’s office couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. To contact the reporter on this story: Adam Ewing in Stockholm at aewing5@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net Kim McLaughlin Source :  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-12/vimpelcom-says-u-s-dutch-authorities-probe-its-uzbekistan-unit.html