Telenor

 

Telenor says bruising Myanmar exit helped prompt rejig of Asia business

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Norwegian gathering conducts the majority of its business in the district and is presently open to doing bargains.

According to the Norwegian telecoms company's chief executive, investors' perceptions of the remainder of the company's Asian assets have been impacted by Telenor's difficult exit from Myanmar following the military coup.

The state-controlled company, according to Sigve Brekke, has created a separate division for its Asian assets, which include Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, and Malaysia, in order to pursue strategic options that could include a merger.

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Telenor's troublesome exit from Myanmar after the tactical upset has harmed financial backers' perspectives on its other Asian resources, as per the Norwegian telecoms organization's CEO.

The state-controlled company, according to Sigve Brekke, has created a separate division for its Asian assets, which include Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, and Malaysia, in order to pursue strategic options that could include a merger.

Myanmar contributed quite a bit of value to Telenor's market capitalization. It impacted financial backers' perspectives on our Asian resources. Another reason why we are operating differently in Asia is because of this. Going forward, we are better equipped to deal with risks," he stated.

In addition, he stated that he "did not want to speculate" regarding the possibility of Telenor's presence in Asia in five years, other than through joint ventures with partners in the region.

Asia has been a troublesome hunting ground for western telecoms administrators with most, like BT and Telia, being driven out. Some analysts have urged Telenor to concentrate solely on its Nordic backyard rather than leaving Asia, where it has approximately 95% of its customers.

After the coup in 2021, the Norwegian operator had to leave Myanmar through a rough exit, but it eventually got permission from the government to sell its business to a Lebanese investment group last year.

Brekke stated at the time that the company was in an impossible situation as a result of being asked to use phone intercepting equipment in violation of international law and being denied the right to let foreign employees leave. However, activists and advocates for human rights strongly criticized its departure, interpreting it as Norway's abandonment.

After more than a year, Brekke stated: I'm miserable realizing that we needed to leave Myanmar. Myanmar was a place where we saw that we could make a difference in addition to being profitable. We believed we had no other choice. We went with the option that wasn't too bad.

He added that keeping up with the security of its laborers and clients while managing the requests from the junta was testing. " At the point when you have standards, they accompany an expense. Keeping our employees and customers safe was our guiding principle. He stated, "We never turned on any listening equipment."

Telenor has been in Asia for a fourth of hundred years and Brekke hyped up the worth it had made. He said that Telenor had taken out as much in profits as it had put resources into the landmass — about NKr65bn ($6.3bn), and gauges that the worth of the gathering's recorded Asian organizations and the book worth of its Pakistani business to be about NKr100bn, contrasted with NKr180bn absolute market capitalisation for the gathering.

In addition to its similar position in Bangladesh, the Norwegian operator recently completed mergers in Malaysia and Thailand, making the new companies the top players in each country. It is looking into all options right now, including selling in Pakistan.

In 2019, it failed to successfully combine its entire Asian operations with Malaysia's Axiata. Brekke stated that ever since then, he had been working on potential deals for its Asian business, but that they were structurally complicated and took a long time to complete. He also stated that he had visited the region approximately sixty times during that time.

Additionally, there might be deals closer to home. Last month, the Financial Times reported that the Hong Kong-listed conglomerate CK Hutchison was in talks with the Norwegian group about merging their Denmark and Sweden operations. In February, Telenor also sold 30% of its Norwegian fiber business to a KKR-led consortium.