On September 16, the board of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) approved a direct loan of up to $350 million for Vodafone Ukraine. The funds will go toward refinancing the operator’s existing debt, the DFC stated in a public project summary.
News of the approval broke on September 17, when the DFC announced it would fund a network upgrade at the operator. The project summary now puts a figure on the loan and explains how it will work.
The loan doesn’t hand Vodafone Ukraine fresh money for its network directly. Instead, it replaces part of the operator’s existing debt. The cash Vodafone Ukraine would otherwise have set aside for those repayments must go toward equipment from DFC-approved vendors — at least $350 million worth over the first five years of the loan. The DFC puts the total project cost at up to $700 million.
The DFC expects the project to keep Ukraine’s telecom infrastructure running and resilient. As the agency sees it, the financing will let the operator stay in business, service its foreign debt and keep investing in its network amid the full-scale invasion. That should preserve connectivity for around 15 million Ukrainians.
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Vodafone Ukraine (PrJSC VF Ukraine) is the country’s second-largest mobile operator and one of its three nationwide carriers. It is wholly owned by the NEQSOL holding group.
So far, the company has only confirmed the approval itself. In a post on its website, Vodafone Ukraine noted that it expects to channel its own funds into capital investment, but the loan still needs final sign-off and signed documentation. The operator says it will announce separately once the agreements are signed and the money arrives.
