Lebanon’s M1 Group and a local Myanmar partner will take over Norwegian telecoms company Telenor‘s business in the troubled Southeast Asian country, three sources have said.
Telenor, one of the biggest foreign investors in Myanmar, said in July it was selling its operations there to M1 Group for $105 million, retreating from a country that has slid into chaos after a military coup in February last year.
Its exit has been mired in difficulties as the junta piles pressure on telecom and internet companies to install surveillance technology and bars senior executives from leaving the country. Military leaders late last year rejected a sale solely to M1.
Instead, they privately approved a partnership between M1 Group and local firm Shwe Byain Phyu Group, a group of companies with interests in gem mining and petrol stations.
Its chairman, Thein Win Zaw, is a director of Mahar Yoma, part of a consortium that has a stake in the military-owned telco Mytel, corporate records show.
An October 2021 order from the office of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing seen by Reuters instructed officials at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the regulatory body, to reject the sale to M1 Group.
The Beirut-based group is owned by the family of Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati. The order did not state a reason why but the sources familiar with the matter said the junta favoured a local buyer as it wants to retain leverage over its operations.
Representatives of M1 Group, which is based in Beirut, did not immediately answer phone calls by Reuters seeking comment. A junta representative did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Telenor said it was waiting for a response to its application for regulatory approval of the sale and declined to comment further.
- Reuters, with additional editing by George Russell
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