Jakarta - Indonesia may not force Qatar Telecom to buy all of the shares in Indosat, part of which Singapore's Temasek Holdings-owned ST Telemedia had sold to the Gulf company earlier this month.
Qatar Telecom has purchased 40.8 per cent of the Indonesian telecommunications company for US$1.8 billion (S$2.5 billion) from the Singapore firm.
Current Indonesian law requires investors who buy 25 per cent of a publicly-traded company to make an offer for all remaining shares, but yesterday, Bisnis Indonesia newspaper reported the country's regulator as saying that Indonesia might change the rule.
'We are going to issue a new rule regarding controlling stake and tender offer this month,' Mr Ahmad Fuad Rahmany, chairman of the Capital Market and Financial Institution Supervisory Agency, was quoted as saying.
The change in rule, he added, 'may not' require Qatar Telecom to hold a tender offer to buy Indosat shares it does not already own.
Qatar Telecom had bought ST Telemedia's stake in Indosat after a Jakarta court endorsed a ruling by the nation's anti-monopoly watchdog, KPPU, that Temasek Holdings and its affiliates had broken anti-trust laws through their shareholdings in Indosat and Telkomsel, another telco. SingTel, also a Temasek subsidiary, owns 35 per cent of Telkomsel.
Mr Rahmany said Qatar Telecom may buy more Indosat shares in a tender offer, but will not acquire all the remaining shares because of a presidential rule which limits foreign ownership of telephone companies.
Under a decree issued by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last year, foreign investors may hold up to 49 per cent of Indonesian fixed-line operators and 65 per cent of cellular service providers.
Vice-President Jusuf Kalla on Friday said Qatar Telecom's purchase of Indosat was 'lawful', dismissing the stand by the nation's anti-monopoly body which has insisted that the sale violated its rules.
