Astro mulls relisting with the impending emergence of possible competitor ABN

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KUCHING: It was reported that Astro might be considering a potential relisting, this added with the entrance of Cable pay-TV operator Asian Broadcasting Network (ABN) slated to roll out its service in second quarter of 2012 (2Q2012) to directly compete with Astro adding spice to the cable tv market.

Based on a research report by OSK Research Sdn Bhd (OSK Research), it noted that Astro had been approached by investment bankers on a potential re-listing.

The firm’s sources indicated that relisting plans were being mooted, with timing being a key consideration.

The company was privatised by its major shareholder and Astro’s relisting could take on a similar route with its sister company, Maxis and fast-tracked.

Astro’s subscriber base had surpassed three million as at end-2011, cementing its lion share of the six million pay-TV households in the country.

It added that Astro’s re-listing was timely as it was seeing inbound competition from the telcos, which were offering triple play products amidst rising competition.

In a bid to pre-empt competition and to expand the addressable market of its product and service, Astro unveiled NJOI, a subscription free service.

The research firm also noted that competition was heating up with the entrance of a new digital cable operator, Asian Broadcasting Network (ABN).

ABN was expected to launch its pay-TV service in second quarter 2012 (2Q2012 with a target of 0.5 million subscribers within the first year of rollout and three million subscribers in three years, and would be investing RM2 billion over 10 years to cover six million households.

It was in the process of signing up key content and had managed to poach key individuals from the broadcasting Industry including Astro.

More recently, ABN inked an agreement with Fibercomm (51 per cent-owned by Telekom Malaysia Bhd) for backhaul access and had appointed contractors to roll out to five areas in the country, two of which were in the Klang Valley.

The firm gathered from industry sources that ABN had signed up about half of the 100 channels that it intended to offer when the service goes live.

ABN’s entry would likely to be a threat to Astro as it was vying for a similar addressable market comprising the country’s six million households.

It also thought that the impending relisting of Astro could reignite talks of a union with Maxis given the potential longer-term term synergies under a converged landscape.

A merger was not an implausible idea as both companies shared a common shareholder which might be looking to streamline its media and telecommunication businesses in Malaysia.

Astro was looking at ways in which its service could reach out to more customers across multiple platforms and was toying with cloud services while Maxis was slowly transforming itself to be an integrated telecommunication player with bundled offerings.