Digicel signs Myanmar mast deal with Ooredoo

Denis O’Brien has teamed up with local

Myanmar

tycoon

Serge Pun

to form a consortium to build and lease a network of mobile phone masts to

Ooredoo

, a Qatari company that won a mobile phone licence in Myanmar earlier this year.

Mr O'Brien's Digicel and Mr Pun's Yoma group have formed Digicel Asian Holdings (DAH).

The consortium does not include billionaire currency dealer George Soros, who bid in partnership with Digicel and Yoma for a Myanmar licence in the process that saw a licence go to Ooredoo.

Myanmar Tower Holdings, DAH’s subsidiary in the country, will build the mast network on a range of sites assembled for Digicel’s unsuccessful licence bid. It said the masts would be “multi-tenancy” and hoped the network would eventually be used by “all telecommunications operating companies” in Myanmar.

Telenor, a Norwegian company, also won a licence there this year.

In its latest quarterly results Digicel said it had accrued $25 million in costs so far assembling its network of mast sites.