Capital Markets | Myanmar
Pan Asia Majestic Eagle, a telecom infrastructure company based in Yangon, Myanmar, completed the first cross-border, nonrecourse project financing in the country, paving the way for the expansion of commercial bank financing from foreign lenders. The frontier market with a population of 60 million is seeking to rejoin the global economy following nearly 50 years of isolation under military rule.
Pan Asia Majestic Eagle will use the $85 million raised in its four-year financing to complete the construction of a new wireless tower network. The company is building more than 1,250 towers for Ooredoo, formerly Qatar Telecom, which will provide 3G mobile-communications services throughout the country.
The dollar-based financing was the largest foreign-currency loan for a Myanmar company. DBS Bank, ING Group, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Standard Chartered Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation arranged the facility.
The country’s mobile-telecom market has only a 9% penetration rate. Norway’s Telenor also won a telecom license in Myanmar last year. State-run Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications, the only telecom provider until now, announced a partnership in August with Japanese companies KDDI and Sumitomo. The Japanese firms plan to invest about $2 billion to expand MPT’s network.
