Shareholders may consider sale of Robi, says CEO

The government’s move to raise the mobile operators’ turnover tax to 2 percent from 0.75 percent from the new fiscal year will drive the smaller operators out of the industry, said Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, chief executive officer and managing director of Robi.

In a group interview in his office yesterday, he said the increased tax on turnover will turn them into a lossmaking venture even though they had projected to make about Tk 50 core in net profit in 2019 at the beginning of the year.

“Robi logged in profit in the first quarter but thanks to the proposed tax measures -- which will be the highest in the world -- the trend will not continue for the rest of the year.”

In 2018, Robi had declared Tk 214.7 crore in net profits. The operator’s shareholders are very frustrated about the new tax measures and Ahmed will not be surprised if they decide to put Robi up for sale.

Referring to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Ahmed said apart from Bangladesh only two other countries have turnover tax and their rates are much lower than Bangladesh’s.