Axiata Group CEO steps down less than 18 months on the job

Axiata Group Berhad has announced that its President and Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dato Izzaddin Idris will be stepping down from his role effective 31st May 2022. According to the telecommunications group, his stepping down is based on a mutual cessation of his service contract between him and Axiata.

Dato Izzaddin was appointed to the CEO role on 1st January 2021 and he succeeded telco veteran Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim who retired after 12 years of service to the group. Izzaddin has over 20 years of experience in investment banking and financial and general management. Before joining Axiata, he was the CEO of UEM Group Berhad, and Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President (Group Finance) of Tenaga Nasional Berhad.

According to Axiata, the board has appointed its CEO for telecommunications business and Group Executive Vice President Dr Hans Wijayasuria, and Group Chief Financial Officer Vivek Sood as interim joint acting Group CEOs effective 1st June 2022.

The announcement of the CEO’s departure came shortly after Axiata posted its Q1 2022 financial results which recorded a net loss of RM42.97 million. The losses were reported to be due to foreign exchange losses of RM476.9 million by its mobile operations in Sri Lanka.

Axiata aims to settle Celcom’s 5G access with DNB by 30th June

It was recently reported that Celcom aims to meet the government’s deadline to sign up for 5G access and equity with Digital National Berhad by 30th June. According to Izzaddin, they are making every effort to comply with the deadline and are evaluating the proposal through its advisor, Maybank Investment Bank Berhad. He added that Celcom has mapped out the proposal based on the process that has been mapped out by DNB. They are following the process and they hope that they can make an announcement in due course.

On the question if Celcom would settle for a minority stake in DNB, Izzaddin said he is unable to disclose the details due to the binding non-disclosure agreement (NDA). At the moment, it is reported that a total of nine telcos have been invited to the process which also includes the big four telcos – Celcom, Digi, Maxis and U Mobile.

Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz was recently reported to have rejected the proposal by the big four telcos to acquire a controlling stake in DNB. The four telcos have previously raised concerns about DNB’s reference access offer which will not enable affordable and quality 5G services for Malaysians. Under the agreement, telcos will have to pay DNB RM30,000 per Gbps per month for 5G capacity which is tied to a ten-year contract period.

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