AKTEL Share Offloading By End Of 2008

AKTEL, the country's third largest mobile operator, has said it is now working on listing it on the capital market by the year-end, bringing another good news for the continued bearish market.

The company officials said the commitment made earlier to the Securities and Exchange Commission about the offloading of some portion of its shares would certainly be followed.

"We had a roadmap to go for public by the end of the year. We are working on it," Nora Junita Dato Seri Mohd Hussaini, chief financial officer (CFO) of AKTEL, told The Daily Star on Monday.

If the plan goes ahead, AKTEL will be the second telecom company to be listed on bourses within a very short gap after listing of the leading mobile operator, Grameenphone (GP), by September this year. The Telenor's majority stakeholder GP already submitted its IPO prospectus last week to the capital market regulator to raise $300million.

However, telecom market insiders question how can a company that is in the middle of transferring its 30 percent ownership will goes for IPO?

AKTEL's 70 percent is owned by Telekom Malaysia and the rest 30 percent will be bought by NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese telecom giant. The Japanese giant said it made a deal with TM in June to have 30 percent shares in AKTEL for $350million by December this year. AKTEL had 7.85million customer as of June 2008.

In the six mobile operators' market Grameenphone is the leader with having 20.31million subscribers, followed by Egypt based Orascom's Banglalink's 9.46million customers.

"Basically we are exploring different options. Of course, we made the commitment and we will do so when we are ready. We have started the groundwork on the IPO and we are hopping to do it on time," the AKTEL'S CFO said.

However, Nora did not agree to disclose how much money her company is planning to raise from the capital market. “It's very early to say something about this”, she said.

In an interview with the Daily Star in January this year, Yusof Annuar Yaacob, chief execuitve officer, Telekom Malaysia International, estimated that AKTEL is worth more than $1billon, but the company needs some extra time before it readies to list on the stock market.

"We may issue up to 10 percent of the company shares towards the public and AKTEL gets the cash," he hinted at that time.

Capital market experts welcomed the AKTEL's move after Grameen.

Mahmood Osman Imam, professor of Finance Department at the Dhaka University, said, “After Grameen, AKTEL's listing will help the market to enhance its absorption capacity. "

“And when such big players come into the market, manipulation by individuals reduces, as trade volume will be increased significantly," he added.