The Lippo, Astro, and Axis ruckus

Back in September, Malaysia’s The Star daily newspaper ran this story about Astro.

The gist of it is this:

Lippo’s Direct Vision and Astro All Asia Network went into a joint venture to run a pay-TV operation under Astro’s brand. The Lippo Group owned Natrindo Selular which was also partly owned by Malaysia’s Maxis Communications.

Maxis, who’s also partly owned by T. Ananda Krishnan who heads Malaysia’s Astro, raised its share of Natrindo to 95% and shortly after sold 25% of his Maxis share to Saudi Telecom which was “packaged with a 51% stake in Natrindo”. The Lippo Group predictably was furious about the deal as they were kept out of it.

Saudi Telecom and Maxis then announced Axis, a new cellular operator in Indonesia, with much fanfare.

Malaysia’s Astro declined to renew the broadcast license in Indonesia after having failed to reach a deal with Direct Vision and left thousands of Astro subscribers in the dark.

It may not seem so convoluted but when you follow the news in Indonesia about how Astro collapsed and realize how ubiquitous Lippo Group is in Indonesia, it becomes so much more complicated.