NeraTel already supplies both licence winners and could win tenders for telco infrastructure. The impact of the telco licence upset in Myanmar continues to make itself felt on stocks listed here, a week after the Myanmar authorities surprised the market by awarding mobile licences to Norway's Telenor and Qatar's Ooredoo.

Two other consortiums ‐ one that included SingTel and another with Yoma Strategic Holdings  ‐  were unsuccessful. Even so, a surprise beneficiary surfaced in the form of telco solutions firm Nera Telecommunications(NeraTel).

While NeraTel was not among the bidders, it isin a plum position as an existing supplier of services to both winning horses ‐ Telenor and Ooredoo ‐ in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Since the bidding results broke last Thursday, NeraTel has surged 12 cents or 19.7 per cent in five market days to 73 cents. While the inability to gain a telco licence in a country of almost 50 million people with a mobile phone penetration of 6‐7 per cent must be galling, analysts believe that all is notl ost for the Myanmar‐ based conglomerate.

At the same time, SingTel's loss of the bid  ‐ the largest upset of the outcome ‐ has been deemed a dodging of a bullet. The market, suitably buoyed, boosted the price from $3.72 to $3.76 by Tuesday on news of SingTel's inability to get a licence. By yesterday, it had settled back down to $3.66 ‐ still higher than its
closing price of $3.60 last Wednesday, the day before the bid results were announced.

Source: AmFraser