Telenor Moves Grameenphone CEO Over to Hungarian Subsidiary

Telenor has shuffled its management, and is moving Mr. Anders Jensen from running its part-owned Bangladeshi subsidiary, Grameenphone to take over at Hungary's Pannon from the beginning of April. He will succeed Mr. Ove Fredheim, who is leaving to take up another posting within the Telenor Group in Norway.

"We are delighted to appoint Anders Jensen as Pannon's new Chief Executive Officer. He has the right skills and experience to lead one of Hungary's mobile operators and to exploit new areas with high potential in a market that is already saturated with SIM card penetration being above 110 per cent," said Mr. Jan Edvard Thygesen, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pannon and Head of the Central/Eastern European operations of Telenor.

Since 2007, Anders Jensen has served as CEO of Grameenphone, a subsidiary of Telenor and the largest mobile operator in Bangladesh. Prior to that, since 2005, he worked as Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Consumer Market in Telenor Sweden. He has nine years of experience from the Internet and telecommunications industry with Europolitan, Vodafone and Telenor, in addition to several years of experience working with fast moving consumer goods.

A replacement to head up Grameenphone has not been named.

In related news, the on-off sale of Grameenphone shares on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) faced another set back when the DSE decided to block any listings of securities with a face value of Tk 1. The prospectus of Grameenphone's US$65 million floatation is awaiting the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval. The face value of each of Grameenphone's share has been fixed at Tk 1, excluding premium - which effectively blocks the Grameenphone sale.

Under the new plans, the minimum face value of a share will have to be Tk 10 to get listed on the stock exchange.

Posted to the site on 9th March 2009