Telecommunications provider Telenor announced on Thursday that it had entered into an agreement to sell its Myanmar operations to the M1 Group for US$105m.
The agreement, which is pending regulatory approval, allows for M1 to acquire all of Telenor Myanmar’s licences, contracts, employees and customers.
Sigve Brekke, president and CEO of the Norwegian company Telenor Group, said in a statement on Thursday that the company’s decision to leave Myanmar was based on the “increasingly challenging” context of working in the country in recent months.
The announcement came days after the Telenor Group said it was considering pulling out of Myanmar.
Following the February 1 military coup, Myanmar’s junta cut off mobile and internet connections nationwide and has continued to restrict access in a bid to stifle massive popular resistance to its rule.
“We have evaluated all options and believe a sale of the company is the best possible solution in this situation,” Brekke said in the statement, adding that the sale to the M1 Group would “ensure continued operations.”
Activist group Justice for Myanmar described the move as “a further nail in the coffin” for the “prospects for freedom of expression and the right to privacy in Myanmar,” which the group said had been destroyed in the attempted coup.
“The lives of activists and journalists are put at even more risk from Telenor’s planned, irresponsible exit from Myanmar,” Justice for Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung told Myanmar Now, adding, “The people of Myanmar must now be more vigilant in regards to military surveillance and the weaponisation of telecommunications.”
The M1 Group was founded and is run by Lebanon’s former prime minister, billionaire Najib Mikati, and his brother Taha Mikati and nephew Azmi Mikati.
The Mikati family history, which includes corruption charges in Lebanon and a pattern of investing in telecoms infrastructure in authoritarian contexts, should be “alarming” to the people of Myanmar, Yadanar Maung said.
M1 has been listed on the Burma Campaign UK’s “Dirty List” of companies with ties to the Myanmar military since August 2019. Director Mark Farmaner told Myanmar Now that M1 was included for being a major shareholder in Irrawaddy Green Towers, Ltd. (IGT)—the largest telecom towers company in Myanmar, founded in 2014—which also has links to telecoms provider Mytel, a joint venture with the military.
In December 2020 it was announced that IGT would be sold to CVC Capital Partners Asia. However, the nearly $400m loan CVC Capital Partners Asia required for the acquisition was reportedly “put on hold” after Myanmar’s coup.
“If M1 sold their interest in IGT, they would be removed from the list. They have not replied to our letters and emails,” Farmaner said.
At least one member of M1’s leadership still serves on IGT’s board of directors, according to IGT’s website and its listing on the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration in Myanmar.
During genocidal military operations against the Rohingya population of Rakhine State in August 2017, eyewitnesses reported that a tower constructed by IGT and leased to Telenor was used by Myanmar army soldiers as a sniper post from which to shoot fleeing Rohingya villagers in Alethankyaw, Maungdaw Township.
Telenor is one of four telecommunications operators in Myanmar and has around 18 million subscribers. It entered the market in 2014, when the military-backed government first allowed foreign investment in the industry.
The company wrote off the value of its Myanmar operation—once $782m—in May, saying the worsening security and human rights situation in the country showed “limited prospects of improvement.”
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to include comment by Justice for Myanmar.
