Explainer: True-Dtac merger deal born after 9 months
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) voted 3:2 to “conditionally acknowledge” a planned merger between True Corporation and Total Access Communications (Dtac) after nine months of deliberation.
The decision was made on Thursday night at a meeting that lasted more than 11 hours.
Two NBTC board members voted to acknowledge the merger plan and two voted against, leaving board chairman Sorana Boonbaichaipreug to cast the deciding vote.
Consumer rights organisations oppose the merger, saying it will leave Thailand with just two telecom companies, undermining competition and hurting consumers.
Summary of the merger
The board will now send a summary of the vote to the Office of The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission.
The merger process
A new company must be founded.
But before that happens, the shareholders of both companies must approve the merger plan. Once approved, an application can be submitted to the Commerce Ministry. The newly merged company must then inform the Stock Exchange of Thailand, a process expected to be completed by December.
According to telecom industry rumours, the merged company’s name will be “TRUE-D”.
Two into one
The new company to be formed by the True-Dtac merger in December will operate the NBTC frequency licences granted to True Move H Universal Communication (TUC) and Dtac TriNet (DTN).
No sharing for 3 years
Among conditions placed on the merger by the NBTC board is that True and Dtac must retain their brands – with no frequency sharing – for three years.
The merged company will have total assets of around 800 billion baht.
True will bring assets of 615.637 billion baht while Dtac has 159.759 billion baht.
The merger will leave Thailand with just two mobile telecom operators, the other being Advanced Info Service (AIS).
AIS has assets of 349.517 billion baht.
The merged firm would also overtake AIS as Thailand’s largest operator since True and Dtac currently have 34 and 21 per cent of subscribers nationwide, respectively, compared with 44 per cent for AIS. The newly merged company will control 54 per cent of the market.
