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Robi-Airtel merger gets PM's approval

Star Business Report
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday gave a go-ahead to the much-talked-about merger proposal of Robi-Airtel, paving the way for the formation of the country's second largest mobile operator.
The merger fee will be Tk 100 crore.
A telecom division official said the prime minister endorsed all the
to be informed before any termination of employees who joined either of the two operators before the merger took place.
In addition, the employment contracts of Airtel employees will be carried over to Robi after the merger.
A voluntary retirement scheme or voluntary separation scheme has to be prepared following the best practice of multina-
clauses and conditions set by the division for the amalgamation of the two operators.
The approved file arrived at the telecom division yesterday, said Md. Faizur Rahman Chowdhury, telecom secretary.
The file will be sent to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission that will then take it forward.
"Only some formalities are left to complete the merger," Chowdhury said.
However, the BTRC's legal team said a court hearing on the issue has been scheduled for August 4; if the prime minister's approved copy is received before that, it will be placed before court.
After that, the first-ever merger in the country's mobile telecom sector will be closer to realisation, said a senior official oftheBTRC.
Robi has to submit a specific plan on human resource management to the telecom regulator to ensure job security of employees so that no-one is terminated or any form of unemployment is created centring on the proposed merger.
For the next three years, the regulator has
tional companies, which will also have to be submitted to the BTRC.
On July 24, the telecom division forwarded the summary of the merger proposal to the prime minister's office for her consent, incorporating a merger fee ofTk 100 crore.
Apart from the merger fees, the telecom division fixed Tk 33.8 crore for per Megahertz of Airtel's 2G spectrums to be used by Robi for the next four years.
Airtel is currently using 15 MHz of 2G spectrums in different two bands and Robi may not take the entire spectrum, hinted their senior officials.
Earlier on July 13, an inter-ministerial meeting chaired by Finance Minister AMA Muhith finalised the merger fees and spectrum prices.
Robi and Airtel opened talks on a possible merger at the end of August 2015, and on January 28, the operators' parent companies signed a deal to that effect.
If merged, the entity will be the second largest operator in Bangladesh after Grameenphone in terms of subscribers. In the merged entity, Axiata, the parent company of Robi, will hold a 68.7 percent controlling stake, Bharti Airtel 25 percent and NTT DOCOMO of Japan 6.3 percent.
Currently, Malaysia-based Axiata has 91.59 percent stakes in Robi and Japan's DOCOMO 8.41 percent, meaning both their shares in the Bangladeshi operation will be diluted after the merger.