A non-binding agreement could be reached by the summer, the report said. This would allow Axiata and Smartfren’s parent company PT Sinar Mas to continue negotiations and begin due diligence procedures.
Bloomberg News said that the two companies are currently discussing the structure of the transaction.
It was first reported in October 2021 that SmartFren and Axiata could combine their businesses. Rumours resurfaced in September last year that a deal was being reconsidered.
Axiata and SmartFren are respectively the third and fourth largest mobile providers in Indonesia, one of the largest markets in the world with over 250 million mobile subscribers.
Axiata have made M&A headlines already this month, agreeing to a sale of its Myanmar tower assets via digital infrastructure subsidiary Edotco.
Axiata also announced a deal with Bharti Airtel in Sri Lanka that although marketed as a merger was really an acquisition with Airtel to maintain a minority stake in the planned venture of just over 10%.
Although Edotco owns towers in Myanmar, it is not a market that Axiata operates within as an MNO.
In addition to Sri Lanka and Indonesia, Axiata has mobile businesses in its home-nation of Malaysia, where it has merged with Telenor’s Digi.
It also has majority ownership of local MNOs in Bangladesh and Cambodia, after exiting the Nepalese market amid heavy controversy in late 2023.
PT Sinar Mas is one of the largest corporations in Indonesia. It bought SmartFren in 2009, and has rolled out a 4G LTE network across Indonesia.
