Telenor to divest stake in Myanmar's Wave Money to Yoma for $53 mln

Yoma Strategic Holdings

17/01/2022 02:24

SINGAPORE, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Norwegian telecom firm Telenor
 TEL.OL  has agreed to sell its 51% stake in Myanmar's Wave
Money, a digital payment service provider, for $53 million to a
subsidiary of Yoma Strategic  YOMA.SI , the companies said in a
joint statement on Monday. 
    The subsidiary, Yoma MFS Holdings Pte Ltd, is to be funded
by a consortium of investors led by Singapore-listed Yoma
Strategic, the companies said. 
    The sale price values Wave Money at about $104 million. That
compares with a valuation of about $150 million in mid-2020 when
the companies had first signed a deal for Telenor to divest its
stake for $76.5 million.  
    Yoma said the new deal took into account factors including
the economic and business developments in Myanmar since the
previous announcements and potential synergies for Wave Money to
collaborate with the company's other businesses.
    Telenor wrote off the value of its Myanmar operations last
year following a military coup in February, and in July agreed
to sell its telecoms business in the Southeast Asian nation to
Lebanese investment firm M1 Group for $105 million https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/telenor-sells-myanmar-operations-m1-group-105-mln-2021-07-08.
 That deal is still awaiting approval from Myanmar authorities. 
    Wave Money was launched in November 2016 as a joint venture
between Telenor and Yoma Bank,  which is part of First Myanmar
Investment (FMI). FMI and Yoma Strategic are part of tycoon
Serge Pun's Yoma Group. 
    In 2020, Wave Money processed $8.7 billion in remittance and
payments. The business has seen a significant recovery in
volumes since June 2021 with the trend expected to continue, the
companies said in a statement.
    

 (Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore
Editing by Ed Davies)
 ((aradhana.aravindan@thomsonreuters.com;))