The company will be formed from the merger of Celcom Axiata Bhd and Telenor's DiGi.Com, with Axiata and Telenor each owning about 33.1% of the new entity.
Idris disclosed the progress in a media briefing on Tuesday, insisting that "the signing is a matter of days or a week," away.
However, talks between the two date back to May 2019 when the plan was to create a merged entity owned 56.5% by Telenor and 43.5% by Axiata.
The planned pan-Asia telco would have operated across nine countries, with a total population of close to one billion. In addition, the firm would have had close to 300 million customers, becoming one of Asia’s largest mobile infrastructure companies, and operating close to 60,000 towers across the continent.
However, by September that year, the deal was off with the two saying: “Due to some complexities involved in the proposed transaction, the parties have mutually agreed to end the discussions.”
Talks were revived in April of this year, with both parties agreeing on the nomination of Idris as chair, Jørgen C. Arentz Rostrup as deputy chair, Idham Nawawi as CEO and Albern Murty as deputy CEO.
