(Bloomberg) -- Telecommunications company Veon Ltd is delisting from the Amsterdam stock exchange due to low liquidity for the stock in Europe and regulatory costs, according to its chief executive.
The Nasdaq-listed firm announced its plan to delist from Euronext Amsterdam earlier this month. It hasn’t made a decision on whether it will shift its Amsterdam headquarters after the move, Kaan Terzioglu said in an interview.
“We are seeing that our investors are not really interested in” trading on Euronext, Terzioglu said. Less than 5% of the total share value traded in the stock over the past 12 months in US dollar terms was on Euronext, according to the company.
Euronext Amsterdam “regret” Veon’s decision to delist, according to a spokesperson.
While it has outperformed Amsterdam’s AEX Index this year, the stock is down by more than 70% since listing there in April 2017. The firm’s US shares are trading 90% below their high hit shortly after they were listed on the Nasdaq in 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“The regulatory environment in Europe is not really helping us maintain two listings at the same time without incurring additional costs,” Terzioglu said after the company’s second-quarter results earlier this month.
Veon was founded in Moscow in 1992 as VimpelCom, one of Russia’s first cellular-phone providers. It exited Russia after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has about 160 million customers, according to the company. Veon had faced difficulties in finding an auditor as many didn’t have the requisite licenses for the markets it operated in.
The company expects the delisting process to take place in the fourth quarter.
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