PSO Denies Looking to Buy Telenor, May Buy EasyPaisa Though

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has denied recent news that it plans to conduct due diligence to acquire Norway’s Telenor businesses in Pakistan. In a stock filing, the company said it has no desire of acquiring Telenor Pakistan. It also said, “However, with respect to Easy Paisa, PSO has not taken any concrete step. Whenever things will materialize, PSO will share information accordingly”. “In view of the foregoing, PSO hereby denies the new article in its printed form,” it added. The rebuttal comes a few days after it was widely reported that the government-run oil company wanted to participate in the first round of bids for the telecom company’s business in the country, but now it has rebuffed all such reports. It can be seen that PSO did not completely rule out the possibility of acquiring Telenor’s Easy Paisa mobile payment platform. However, the company clarified that it has not yet taken any concrete steps in this regard and will provide any updates as they become available. Besides Pakistan’s biggest oil marketing company (PSO), other relatively better-positioned organizations like PTCL Group have openly shown interest in acquiring Telenor Pakistan’s operations and management in totality, ProPakistani reported on January 31st.