OSLO, Norway (Reuters) – Telenor, a Norwegian telecoms company, announced on Thursday that it had sold its Myanmar business to M1 Group, a Lebanese investment firm, for $105 million, declaring its exit from a country that had descended into instability following a military takeover in February. “The decision to divest the firm is based on further deterioration of the situation and recent developments in Myanmar,” Telenor said in a statement. Telenor, one of Myanmar’s largest foreign investors, was one of the few Western corporations to gamble on the country as it emerged from a decade of military dictatorship. After seeing its mobile operations severely curtailed following the Feb. 1 military takeover, Telenor wiped off the value of its Myanmar unit in May, posting a loss of 6.5 billion Norwegian crowns ($752 million). The junta ordered the statewide cutoff of mobile data on March 15, making it more difficult for pro-democracy activists to organize protests and spread messages in support of the deposed democratic administration. According to the United Nations, violence has driven more than 230,000 people from their homes since the February 1 coup, with more than 880 people dead by security forces and 5,200 detained. According to a source who spoke to Reuters earlier this week, Myanmar’s junta has banned senior foreign executives of major telecommunications firms from leaving the country without permission and is pressuring them to fully implement intercept technology that would allow authorities to monitor users. According to Telenor Chief Executive Sigve Brekke, the transaction has an implicit enterprise value of around $600 million, and the sale to M1 group will ensure the company’s continued operations. “The situation in Myanmar has been increasingly problematic for Telenor in recent months for reasons of human security, regulatory compliance, and compliance,” Brekke added. The state-owned Norwegian operator operates in the Nordics as well as Asia, where 95 percent of its 187 million users live – in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Myanmar. In Myanmar, it has over 18 million clients, accounting for around a third of the country’s 54 million people./n
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