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(Corrects text and headline to clarify that Davies was nolonger CFO of Verizon Wireless since June and was insteadreferred to as Vodafone's financial representative at VerizonWireless)
* Moving listing after nearly two decades on NYSE
* Appoints Verizon Wireless' Andrew Davies as CFO
MOSCOW, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Telecoms group Vimpelcom,with assets in Russia, Italy and emerging markets, poached theformer CFO of the biggest U.S. mobile provider Verizon Wireless,and defected to Nasdaq after nearly two decades trading on NYSEEuronext.
Luring Andrew Davies is a coup for Vimpelcom. He worked atVodafone's Turkish, Japanese and UK businesses before taking theposition of chief financial officer at the U.S. giant - aventure between Verizon Communications and Vodafone - in 2010.
Davies left that role in June to become Vodafone's financialrepresentative at Verizon Wireless.
His appointment by Vimpelcom was seen as an attempt toreassure investors that the Amsterdam-based group will cut itsdebt burden, ease out of some emerging markets and focus onlarger markets instead.
"None of the key tasks Vimpelcom has faced - to ease itsdebt burden or to refinance Wind's (its Italian operations)debts in order to lower its interest expenses - have beenreally fulfilled over the past one-and-a-half to two years,"said Alexander Vengranovich, analyst at Otkritie brokerage.
Vengranovich described Davies as "a very experienced and amajor figure."
Vimpelcom's net debt stands at $22.6 billion, built up whilepursuing expansion in 2010 outside of its core Russian marketthrough a more than $6 billion deal for Egypt's Orascom Telecom and Italy's Wind.
Vimpelcom vies for customers and investors seeking exposureto the Russian telecoms market with London-listed rival Megafon and New York-listed MTS and Megafon.
Some investors have favoured Megafon and MTS due to Vimpelcom's lagging performance in Russia and a long shareholderdispute between its shareholders Altimo, the telecoms arm ofRussian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's Alfa-Group, and Norwegiantelecoms group Telenor, which was resolved last year.
One investor, who prefers MTS and Megafon, said he neededmore assurances to demonstrate that shareholder disputes hadsettled down and that a turnaround in Italy and Russia had takenroot.
"It would take a couple of quarters of sustained improvementto change my mind," said the investor, who declined to be named.
Vimpelcom has focused on improving its market share inRussia by cutting costs and boosting network quality, while areport by Russia's Vedomosti newspaper suggested managementchanges in Russia were also in store, something Vimpelcomdenies.
Vedomosti, citing sources, said Altimo wanted to replaceVimpelcom's Russia CEO Anton Kudryashov. Vimpelcom's CEO JoLunder rejected this.
"We are pleased with the development in Russia... and Iconsider Anton a very important member of my core managementteam and I have no plans or intentions to ask Anton to leave thecompany," Lunder told Reuters by telephone.
LISTING SWITCH
Vimpelcom, which listed on the NYSE in 1996, alsoannounced on Wednesday it was moving to Nasdaq in orderto be included into several Nasdaq indexes and to save costs.
"There are many TMT (technology, media and telecoms)companies present on Nasdaq ... and we think it is a naturalstep for Vimpelcom to be included into that very strong group ofcompanies," Lunder said.
"This is something we have been analysing and looked intofor a while and we decided that now is the time," Lunder said.
The NYSE and Nasdaq compete fiercely for listings, althoughRussian companies which seek overseas trading tend to apply tothe London Stock Exchange, which is closer.
Vimpelcom will join other Russian technology-focusedcompanies on Nasdaq such as search engine Yandex andexpects to begin trading on Sept. 10.
The move will, however, be a loss for the NYSE, which boastsa handful of Russian names such as MTS, steel and coal minerMechel and U.S.-based IT services provider Epam SystemsInc.
Vimpelcom also said its second quarter net income rose 17percent year-on-year to $573 million and beating a Reuters pollforecast of $497 million.
Revenue was flat at $5.7 billion, in line with expectations,while earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation andamortisation fell 2 percent to $2.4 billion with a 42.4 percentmargin, Vimpelcom said in a statement. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; additional reporting and writingby Megan Davies, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Thomas Atkins)
