Flash Report /
Bangladesh

Grameenphone agrees to pay BDT10bn

    IDLC Securities
    21 February 2020
    Published byIDLC Securities

    Obeying a court order, Grameenphone (GP) has announced it will deposit BDT10bn (USD117.6mn, BDT7.4 per share) on 23 February.

    This payment will allow GP to receive NOCs (a kind of regulatory approval) from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). Without an NOC, GP has been struggling to continue its usual business operations. We believe the regulator will consider this step by GP as a gesture to solve the dispute and will continue discussions, thus hereby minimising the chance of appointing administrators in GP to collect the audit claim.

    Note that this payment for the stay-order is not the final verdict on the total dispute claim of BDT126bn (US$1.5bn). We expect GP to resume dialogue with the regulator to solve the dispute soon.

    Our valuation already considers a BDT33 per share payment for the audit dispute. Therefore, the impact of this payment is already implied in our valuation, keeping our target price unchanged at BDT438.8 per share.