Norway’s Telenor boosted quarterly profit sevenfold as a result of a gain from its deal with Alfa, but losses from its Indian business weighed on the result.
The company announced a net profit of 9.6 billion ($1.50b), driven by an exceptional NOK6.5 billion gain from the settlement of the long-running dispute with Alfa, which ended with the mergers of their Russian and Ukraine telecom assets.
It also said it would buy back 3% of outstanding stock to improve shareholder returns.
Outside the Alfa deal, sales were flat, with currency fluctuations offsetting the 13% growth from Telenor’s five Asian units.
Telenor said a NOK1.3 billion ($207m) ebitda loss from its new Indian operation Uninor was mostly to blame for the lower ebitda, which was down 12% to NOK6.9 billion ($1.1b).