GP owners set aside ownership row, say committed to go public by 2008

FE ReportbrThe owners of the country's largest mobile phone company, Grameenphone, Tuesday set aside their ownership row and said they are committed to go public by the end of 2008.brNorway's Telenor and Bangladesh's Grameen Telecom said their priority was now to make the GP --- which controls nearly 50 percent of the country's 45 million-strong mobile phone market --- the benchmark corporate in Bangladesh.brOur commitment also extends to our stated objective of ensuring the seamless execution of the Grameenphone IPO (Initial Public Offering) by 2008, said a statement jointly signed by Dipal Chandra Barua, deputy managing director of Grameen Telecom, and Per-Erik Hylland, senior vice president of Telenor.brThe GP wants to meaningfully contribute to the development of Bangladesh capital market and its positive profiling across the globe, it added.brThe statement comes as a sigh of relief for the country's stock exchanges and the securities regulator, which have reportedly expressed their doubt whether the country's biggest company could go public by its stated timeframe of 2008. brGrameenphone filed its IPO application with the country's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June this year, valuing the company at US$3.75 billion dollars, the richest in the country. brIt plans to raise up to $150 million in a pre-IPO placement with international and local investors and a further $150 million in a local initial public offering, that would be the country's biggest flotation.brLast week Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad, whose Grameen Bank owns the Grameen Telecom, threatened to sue GP's majority owner Telenor over controlling stake into the company.brYunus said late Thursday he was considering launching legal proceedings against Telenor to force it to honour a deal dating back to 1996 that would hand control of GrameenPhone to the Grameen Telecom.brThe poor would be the ultimate beneficiaries if the country's largest mobile phone operator comes under Bangladeshi ownership and management to become a company with social objectives, Yunus said in Norwegian capital Oslo.brTelenor owns 62 per cent of GrameenPhone, while Grameen Telecom holds the rest 38 per cent stake. brLast year, Yunus offered to buy another 13 per cent stake from Telenor at a price over $426 million to become the majority owner of the GP. But Telenor has refused to sell its stake in the company. brWith around 22 million subscribers, Grameenphone has become a key operation for the Telenor, which is the world's seventh largest mobile phone operator.brTelenor, which is 54-percent owned by the Norwegian government, has insisted that the 1996 agreement was not legally binding.brIn an attempt to defuse the situation, Telenor chief executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas met on Thursday with Yunus, who at the time made no mention of a legal suit, according to the Norwegian company.brBaksaas has called on Yunus to help the company improve working conditions among suppliers in Bangladesh, following revelations that some of its suppliers have employed child labour. brInstead of attacking Telenor, we have asked Mr. Yunus to cooperate with us so that we can rectify the unacceptable situations as quickly as possible, he said in a statement.brEveryone should fight against child labour and dangerous working conditions in Bangladesh ... regardless of whether they own 62 percent or 38 percent of a company, he added.br