Telenor has no plans to exit BD or merge GP with others

Norway-based multinational telecommunications company Telenor has no plans to pull investment from Bangladesh, or merge its Bangladesh unit Grameenphone (GP) with others.
Telenors Norwegian CEO Sigve Brekke shared their future plans for business in Bangladesh, compared to other countries in South and South-East Asia, in an interview with bdnews24.com and some other media outlets during his recent Dhaka visit.
Besides his experience with 5G, he also spoke about the recent tug-of-war over Grameen Telecoms control.
Telenor controls a 55.8 percent stake in GP. Grameen Telecom controls 34.2 percent in the company and the remaining 10 percent is in the hands of general investors. The company holds one of the biggest single foreign investments in Bangladesh. It is also the largest corporate taxpayer in the country. Led by Brekke, Telenor is serving around 209 million customers in eight countries with an 11,000-strong workforce. Its annual sales stood at NOK 81 billion in 2023.
Brekke, 65, a former state secretary at the Norwegian defence ministry, has extensive experience of running business in South and South-East Asia. He joined Telenor in 1998 as an advisor, and was in 1999 employed as manager of business development and later managing director of Telenor International for Asia.He served as co-CEO Thailands mobile phone operator dtac from 2002 to 2005, and CEO of dtac from 2005-2008. He most recently served as executive vice president and head of the Asia Region, prior to his appointment as president and CEO.
Besides Bangladesh, Telenor invested in the countrys neighbours India, Pakistan and Myanmar.
It merged its business in India with Airtel and sold its Myanmar unit after the military junta took over. It also merged its businesses in Thailand and Malaysia.
In December, it announced the sale of its operations in Pakistan.
Asked what their plans are for Bangladesh, Brekke said: "We are very committed for the next few years. So thats why Im saying that the first growth was the first 27 years.
"Now we are preparing ourselves for the next growth wave. And for the next decade or two decades. So we are very committed," he said.
"The reason why we have exited some markets and the reason why we have merged in some markets is that we saw that we need to be prepared for the data growth in these markets. And we saw that we cannot, there is not business enough for basically more than three operators. It was when people were lining up to get their first mobile phone."
"Then it was enough growth for more than three players. But now that people have a mobile phone, you need to then be able to provide different types of services. And thats why we saw that in Malaysia and Thailand."
"We merged so that we got the number one position in the market, 50 percent market position. That we now have in Thailand, that we now have in Malaysia and that we have in Bangladesh. In Pakistan that was not possible."
"And then we said that we don think we can actually make money for the next growth wave. And then we rather exit and concentrate our efforts in the markets where we now have a very solid position. So Im very happy with the number one position we have here and in Thailand and Malaysia."
He said speculations about GPs merger or Telenors exit from Bangladesh are wrong.
"If an investor cannot repatriate profit from a country, then the investor probably will, over time, leave. But thats not the case for us in Bangladesh. We are taking out dividends," Brekke said.
"Its very challenging to do business in Pakistan right now. Thats one of the reasons why we have decided to exit. "
"But doing business in Bangladesh, its good in the sense that we can make money. So, when we are working in a country, we are looking at two things."
"One is that, of course, we need to make money because we have shareholders. But in addition to that, we also want to, what we call, empower societies. The vision of Telenor is to connect people to what matters most, and at the same time empower societies."    
    —bdnews24.com