Following our exit of Russia, our capital structure continuous to be progressively optimized. Our case liquidity position remains strong with leverage metrics at 1.2x net debt to EBITDA due to large declines in gross debt balances over the past 12 months. In addition to this, there’s a 1.5 billion — sorry, $1.05 billion outstanding under the RCF, which can be rolled over until final maturities in 2024 and 2025. We’ve also maintained a robust cash position as outlined earlier in this presentation with $1.7 billion cash equivalents. Of it, $1.3 billion is held at HQ. Where does debt profile stand now? We have made significant progress in establishing a more favorable debt maturity schedule, shifting all significant debt maturities to 2025. As of the end of the third quarter, VEON has $124 million of debt maturing in the next 12 months.
As October 2023, VEON debt maturing in 2025 is $1.5 billion. We know the additional debt redemption will not only reduce effective gross debt levels and maturities at VEON, but also reduce absolute debt servicing cost at VEON. In addition to this, there’s $1.05 billion outstanding under the RCF, which can be rolled over until final maturities in 2024 and 2025. Let me outline some of the changes to our cost of debt and average debt maturity. The cost of borrowing from the second quarter of 2023 has been impacted by three key factors: One, higher interest rates on floating U.S. dollar and Pakistani rupee debt. Two, the early redemption of VEON bonds maturing in December 2023 and June 2024, have also had an impact on borrow cost, due to these bonds holding relatively lower coupons versus the average cost of debt, and the acquisition of VEON Holdings bonds by PJSC VimpelCom.
And three, one should note that we now have a greater proportion of higher rate OpCo debt than lower rate U.S. dollar debt in our gross debt mix. This is the effect of increasing blended cost of debt. Average debt maturity excluding RCF stands at 3.4 years. The next tranche of the RCF due to mature in October ’23 and totaling US$692 million has been rolled over until January 2024. And now I will hand over to Kaan again.
Kaan Terzioğlu : Joop, thank you very much. And before I share with you our revised upgraded guidance, I want to highlight two important things. I am realizing that there are less analysts following our company’s details, I think these two information will be useful in visualizing our run rate figures. Let me zoom out for two important factors. One, last year in October 2022, due to us winning a court case in Pakistan, we had extraordinary recognized revenues which were not recognized previously properly because of this tax case. And it had an impact of 30 million in revenues and 91 million in EBITDA. I think it is important to note that to compare our 2022 and ’23 results. It’s also important to note that almost $43 million of extraordinary costs year-to-date is associated with exit from Russia and restructuring of our headquarters operation in 2023.
Naturally, these costs will also not be recurring. Excluding the above mentioned one-offs, the two cases, October 2023 year-to-date EBITDA growth is trending at 20.3% year-on-year. And this level of growth accurately reflects the current normalized EBITDA growth trends for VEON’s underlying operations. Going forward, we will now provide the market guidance for EBITDA on a normalized basis, excluding these two one-offs. Let me share with you our full year guidance for 2023. Although, we have revised the guidance upwards last quarter, we are now revising our guidance upward again for the second time this year. We expect our full year top line growth to be in the range of 18% to 20%, up from previously declared 16% to 19%. And we also expect normalized EBITDA growth of 18% to 20%, up from 10% to 14% as expressed before.
Our CapEx intensity will now be in the range of 16% to 18% versus 18% to 20% as we have expressed before. Where are we going with this illustration? Let me try to summarize. We are effectively progressing and executing on all our goals, despite certain new challenges, we are optimistic and excited about our future. We have exited Russia. In Ukraine, we will now focus on ensuring VEON’s ownership and shareholder value protection. Looking ahead, our markets remain nascent with most of the population still using feature phones. We will continue delighting them with great service and digital products that matter to them and make their lives better, whether that is through healthcare, education, financial services, watching cricket or entertainment.
We are increasingly becoming asset-light. As some of you may be aware, we recently announced the sale of our towers in Bangladesh, to be precise one-third of our portfolio. Expect more news along these lines in the future. We will continue to optimize our balance sheet to better reflect our digital operator strategy. At the end of the day, we are here to create value for our customers, our partners and shareholders, becoming a leaner, faster, a stronger organization that will deliver greater value to all. Thank you very much for listening us today. And Faisal, let’s move to the questions.
Faisal Ghori: Thank you, Kaan. We can open the line for questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions]
Faisal Ghori: I think we have some questions in the Q&A, so let me start from there then. Our first question comes from [Sean Cook]. With the Russia sale complete, are you now able to pursue a credit rating from a reputable firm? Joop?
Joop Brakenhoff: Thanks, Faisal. Yes, indeed with the Russia operations being sold, we really want to go back to normal and we start the process to pursue a credit rating with one or more of the credit agencies. Yes.
Faisal Ghori: Thank you. Our next question is from [Anjali Doshi]. Can you comment on the following, what is your comfort level of net debt to EBITDA range, excluding inclusive and excluding leases going forward?
Joop Brakenhoff: Yes, I think we’ve given a lot of information in this update. Going forward probably we talk around 1.5x post IFRS, including leases, for us in an acceptable level. And as you know, we are optimizing our capital structure and also increasing our debt maturity. So we think about 1.5x.
