As of now, only state-owned Nepal Telecom (NT) is a public limited company and the rest—seven telecom companies including two satellite phone service providers—are private limited companies. Crossholding is a situation when a company or person has investments in more than one licensee company in the same service area.
In an interesting recommendation, the taskforce has suggested that telecom companies having an annual turnover of over Rs 50 million should be converted into public limited companies within a year of the issuance of the crossholding guideline.
According to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), five telecom companies—Ncell, UTL, Nepal Satellite Telecom, Smart Telecom, STM Telecom Sanchar (now CG Communications)—all have annual turnovers of more than Rs 50 million each.
“In order to make telecom service providers more accountable, we’ve suggested turning them into public limited companies,” said Bhaskarmani Gnawali, coordinator of the taskforce.
In order to attain this objective, the taskforce has also recommended amending the Company Act and Telecommunications Act to force the currently operating private limited telecom companies to go public.
The taskforce has recommended to the government to implement rules preventing a single person or company from holding more than 51 percent of the stock in local telecom companies.
Although the report has not said if the 51 percent limit is for domestic investors only, it has suggested allowing a single foreign investor to hold an 80 percent stake in the sector. “Since telecommunications services are a concern of mass interest, share ownership of more than 51 percent by a single person or group should not be allowed,” said the study report.
All the telecom companies except UTL have investments exceeding 51 percent by a single company.
In a bid to collect feedback from stakeholders, the report has been presented for discussion by the NTA. As per the report, if crossholding is to be allowed, a telecom company having investments of more than 51 percent could hold investments of up to 15 percent in another telecom company. It has recommended to the government to adopt a provision making it necessary for crossholding companies to go for a merger.
The study report, prepared by a committee under the coordination of Bhaskar Mani Gyawali, executive director of Nepal Rastra Bank, has underlined the need to introduce a guideline to regulate crossholding. Other members of the panel were a chartered accountant and the NTA’s deputy director Kailash Prasad Neupane.
As per the report of the taskforce, the government should amend acts including the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act and Industrial Enterprise Act to convert private companies into public companies and regulate the crossholding issue in the telecom sector.
Ananda Raj Khanal, acting chief of the NTA, said that they would collect feedback on the report within a month and submit the study to the NTA board for approval. “A new rule regarding crossholding will be introduced as a bylaw or a guideline based on this study,” he added. Presently, there are no rules preventing practices like crossholding and mergers in the telecom sector.
The issue of crossholding had arisen after TeliaSonera, the parent company of Ncell, acquired a majority stake in Nepal Satellite Telecom through its subsidiary TeliaSonera Asia Holding BV in 2012. However, the Swedish-Finnish telecom company sold its shares in the company in September last year by selling back its indirect ownership to Zhodar Investment based in the British Virgin Islands citing “regulatory reasons” in Nepal.
https://ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2014/01/21/money/crossholding-in-telecom-sector/258426.html
No comments:
Post a Comment