VEON is drawing attention this week not from short sellers — there are barely any — but from its founder, who spent over $1.1 million buying shares in the open market just days ago.
The insider angle is the clearest signal in this week's setup. Augie Fabela II, VEON's founder and director, made open-market purchases on both August 6 and August 7, picking up roughly 20,000 shares at prices around $55–$56. That brings the 90-day net insider buying to $1.12 million — all of it from Fabela, all of it in the past week. These are cash purchases, not award grants, which makes them more meaningful than the equity compensation that dominates the rest of the recent trade history. The timing is notable: Fabela was also buying in May, and the stock has since added roughly 6% over the past month to close at $56.61 on August 11.
Short positioning tells a very different story — one that simply isn't threatening. Short interest has drifted down 4% over the week to just 0.28% of the free float, one of the lowest readings in the universe. Borrowing costs are negligible at 0.54%, barely changed on the week. Availability runs at roughly 1,909% — meaning there are nearly 20 shares available to borrow for every one currently lent out. There is no squeeze dynamic, no elevated borrow demand, and no sign the lending market is being tested. The short score has edged up to 33 this week from around 29 a fortnight ago, but at that absolute level it reflects an almost entirely unloved trade from a bear perspective.
Options positioning has shifted toward calls, which adds a secondary layer to the bullish read. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.68, almost 1.5 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.75 — the lowest reading in roughly two months. In early July the ratio was running close to 0.88–0.89; now calls are clearly dominating. That shift lines up with the price action: VEON is up 4.2% on the week and 6.2% on the month, with the options market reflecting more appetite for upside exposure than any point in recent memory. The 52-week PCR high of 2.21 feels like ancient history from this vantage point.
The valuation picture remains cheap by almost any measure. The stock trades at a PE of 7.4x and EV/EBITDA of just 3.1x — both of which have crept higher over the past month as the price has risen, but neither is stretched. The EV/EBIT factor ranks in the 98th percentile of the universe, meaning VEON screens as one of the most attractively valued companies on an earnings-power basis. EPS surprise ranks in the 76th percentile, so the company has a consistent record of beating estimates. The most recent earnings print — Q2 results reported July 31 — produced a muted one-day move of just 0.6%, but the stock gained 8.2% over the following five days, suggesting the market needed time to digest the numbers.
Ownership concentration is worth keeping in mind as context. Letterone Investment Holdings holds 48.8% of shares, making this a tightly controlled name where free-float dynamics can amplify moves. CEO Muhterem Terzioglu added 61,871 shares through May, and VR Advisory Services built a new position of nearly 294,000 shares in Q1. The next scheduled earnings event falls on November 11, which gives the stock a long runway before the next hard catalyst — leaving the near-term narrative squarely in the hands of macro sentiment toward frontier-market telecoms and whatever Fabela's continued buying signals about his own conviction.
The key thing to watch is whether Fabela's purchases continue at current price levels and whether the options market's call-heavy skew holds as the stock tests the upper end of its recent range.
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