The merging of Celcom and Digi to become the biggest telco in Malaysia is getting closer to reality after both companies received the green light from shareholders. This was confirmed through a brief announcement by Digi as well as Celcom’s parent company, Axiata.
In general, the shareholder’s approval is one of the last hurdles that both telcos need to overcome before the massive merger can take place. Prior to this, they also received the green light from Bursa Malaysia, the Securities Commission, and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
Things certainly did not come easy for the merger. Axiata and Digi first attempted it in May 2019 only for the discussion to be terminated four months later due to complexities within their proposals.
That being said, both companies still did not rule out the possibility of another merger attempt altogether. Fast forward to April 2021, Axiata and Digi announced that they are going through the merger again with the aim to complete it by the second quarter of 2022.
However, the timeline was moved to the second half of the year. Once completed, the merged entity will be called Celcom Digi Berhad with both Axiata and Telenor will each own 33.1% of the new company.
The rest of the merged entity will be owned by members of the public as well as local institutional funds such as EPF, PNB, and KWAP. Celcom Digi Berhad will continue to be listed on Bursa Malaysia as well, just like its predecessor.
Meanwhile, Celcom and Digi were supposed to continue as two separate brands just like the existing arrangement but MCMC has since required them to combine their prepaid and postpaid offerings under a single corporate brand within two years of completing their merger. Still, neither of the telcos has really talked about post-merger moves or the impact of this deal on their customers which were estimated to be around 19 million.
