Nepal Telecommunications Authority seeks share ownership details of telcos
KATHMANDU:
The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has directed the telecom companies to provide latest information on their investors and share ownership structures, amid controversy and rumours regarding share ownership changes in some companies.
Normally, whenever there is change in share structures, telecom companies are supposed to inform the NTA. However, NTA officials have said that they are not receiving information related to trading of share and change in investors.
On November 18, NTA had directed the six telecom companies — Nepal Telecom, Ncell, United Telecom Limited (UTL), Smart Telecom, Nepal Satellite Telecom and STM Sanchar to submit the details about their share structures.
After the companies failed to correspond promptly, it last week re-instructed the companies to provide the information.
Kailash Prasad Neupane, spokesperson for NTA, said that the directive was targeted at updating information on shareholders of the telecom companies. “We want to see if there are any changes in the share ownership over the last one year,” he added.
Earlier this year, there had been a controversy and dispute regarding share ownership of Smart Telecom between two parties of investors of the company. It is also the first company that obtained unified licence, which made it eligible to operate multiple telecoms services across the country, including mobile service. “The controversy indicates that there have been some changes in share investors,” said an official at NTA.
The dispute in Smart Telecom arose after a group appointed a new chairman in the company claiming to have bought 54 per cent of stake. But, another group, which holds majority shares, refused to accept the claim stating that they had not sold any stakes. Later, the company is reported to have resolved the tussle, while also agreeing to sell certain per cent of share to a strategic partner.
There are also rumours of an Indian investor of UTL selling his stake to a Nepali investor and reports have surfaced that Ncell is not being able to repatriate dividend due to lack of clarity on share structure, according to the NTA official.
UTL has 80 per cent investment from Indian investors, including 26.68 per cent of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), state enterprise of India. Likewise, Swedish multinational telecom company TeliaSonera owns 80 per cent stake of Ncell.
About two months ago, MTNL had shown interest to sell its stake in the UTL. A source at UTL said that even as MTNL was positive on selling its stake, there has neither been any concrete decision nor any change in share structure so far. Nepal Ventures, a local company, owns 20 per cent stake in the UTL. The first private sector telecom company has also been planning to obtain unified telecom licence and operate mobile service nationwide.
Meanwhile, as per the latest Management Information System report of NTA, penetration rate of telephone service in the country touched 95.28 per cent with total number of users reaching 25.24 million by second month (mid-September) of the current fiscal year 2014-15. Similarly, internet penetration rate has reached 34.09 per cent of the 26.49 million population of the country.
SOurce: THT
