Chaudhary Group is buying $100 million worth of equipment from Huawei to build a 4G network that can be upgraded to 5G.
From his square, glass-walled office atop the family headquarters in Kathmandu, scion Nirvana Chaudhary has a 360-degree view of the capital from which he can point out various holdings of his family’s group – bank branches, a food production complex, hotels, hospitals.
Few families have such a stranglehold over their homeland as do the Chaudharys, Nepal’s first and only billionaire clan. Their $1.4 billion fortune is worth about 5% of the nation’s fast-growing GDP.
Nirvana, eldest of three brothers who will inherit an empire that spans 30 countries, says the family must move into new businesses including telecommunications and hydropower to stay ahead.
The group is investing in hydro projects, but it’s the push into mobile telephony that has put the Chaudhary clan in the crossfire of the world’s political and economic conflicts. To build a 5G-ready network, Chaudhary decided to partner with Huawei Technologies Co., the Chinese company at the center of a trade spat between China and the US The tie-up also heightens competition between China and India over influence in the region between the world’s two most populous countries.
Chaudhary Group will buy $100 million of equipment from Huawei to launch a new 4G wireless network that can be upgraded to fifth-generation, or 5G, technology. The $250 million investment would put it in competition with state-owned Nepal Telecom; Ncell, part of Malaysia’s Axiata Group; and local player Smart Telecom. Nirvana, like his father Binod, says he’s only interested in getting the best deal, and Huawei advised him to prepare for the next generation of mobile network.
Bloomberg
