Several days ago, Bakrie Telecom (BTEL) and Sampoerna Telekomunikasi Indonesia (STI) announced a collaboration in which STI would acquire 10% of BTEL shares (worth $90 million) and in return, BTEL receives 35% of STI shares which is currently owned by Sampoerna Strategic and Polaris with an option to be the largest shareholder of STI in the next 3 years. Business entity will be synergized under BTEL.

Michael Sampoerna as President Director of Sampoerna Strategic, owner of STI, cited by Kompas, stating that the reason for collaborating with BTEL is to increase its competitiveness in order to expand in the data communications infrastructure, which will become a trend in the future. In other words, rather than making a costly investment in this area (and Sampoerna is not sure that they would gain profit), it is better to go with other entity that is “more secure”.

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