The sale of lifecell to Frenchmen NJJ Capital should take place by September 2024, and after that - a likely merger with Datagroup and Volia

In December, Turkcell (the parent company of lifecell) announced the sale of Ukrainian assets to French NJJ Capital - the deal is estimated at $525 million, but they have been unable to close it for three months due to the arrest of 19.8% of corporate rights in lifecell (the reason being the presence of sanctioned Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman and his partners among the indirect shareholders of Turkcell).

The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) rejected the first application back in early January, and also rejected the second on March 7 - on the same day, lifecell filed an appeal.

"I do not question the court's decision itself - I am also a lawyer. But how did they decide that 19.8% of our shares would be frozen because Friedman's company indirectly owns 19.8% of Turkcell? I cannot solve this equation purely from a mathematical point of view, because the non-arrested 80% of lifecell still indirectly owns 19.8% of Friedman's company," says lifecell CEO Ismet Yazidji in an interview with Forbes.

At the same time, he added that there is hope that the agreement will be closed in April-September 2024, and in the most optimistic scenario - at the end of March.

"Closing the deal at the end of the year is a rather pessimistic scenario. The company is actually in a suspended state, people are working under great pressure. Of course, top management will do everything to motivate the team."

It is worth reminding that a few days after the announcement of the agreement, Yazidji stated that he would resign - now he says that he was ready to resign a year ago, but did not dare to do so because of the war:

"My new position has already been determined. I do not really want to work with the new owners. After preliminary discussions, it turned out that there is no common vision of the strategy for further development and conditions."

In addition to lifecell, NJJ is also acquiring DataGroup-Volia (the deal is estimated at over $100 million), which may lead to a potential merger of the companies:

"The French call this company DVL - 'DataGroup', Volia, lifecell. In this equation, lifecell is the strongest company in terms of revenue, infrastructure, and well-established processes. lifecell can indeed become the common denominator for the merged company. But the final decision lies with the buyers. As far as I understand, they are considering another option. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I do not want to stay in the company after the deal closes," says Yazidji.