ADVERTORIAL

‘Green Link Lanka’ profitable business venture

A leading e-waste management company in the country? ‘Green Link Lanka’? is in the process of initiating a proper e-waste management mechanism as a profitable business venture. Managing Director Green Link Lanka Nalin Gunarathna said that Sri Lanka imports about 1.2 million mobile phone units per year legally with a 40% growth rate . Although it is obvious that the existing number of mobile phones are going out of the service at the same rate, they are not coming out from the society due to lack of awareness of the general public regarding the mobile phone recycling.

He said the company has exported over 4000 metric tons of e-waste for recycling in the past four years bringing a substantial amount of foreign exchange to the country. This included computers, washing machines, batteries, printers, and TVs and 60,000 mobile phones. However, this figure of mobile phones will increase significantly if there is a proper mechanism to dispose the mobile phones properly, he said. Green Links Lanka started its operations as a total e-waste recycling solution provider and carry out all of e-waste collection activities in accordance with the rules and regulations laid by Central Environmental Authority (CEA) for scheduled waste management ensuring that each e-waste stocks is exported with strict accordance to the clauses in BASEL convention.

Green Links Lanka offers an effective and convenient solution for the electronic waste disposal problem providing the buyers with a cost effective and environmentally friendly way of sourcing raw materials for their manufacturing purposes. Waste has always been a problem as people have to find ways and means of disposing them. E-waste or electronic waste is the latest addition to this debris and disposing it in a proper manner is a must. Otherwise they will get mixed with water, contaminating it or the entire environment.

Recently the company collected 2500 mobile phones brought to the prison premises illegally . If not collected they would separate the plastic, copper, aluminium and iron while the rest is dumped at landfills which causes in sicknesses due to contamination of water. He said that though some waste could be extracted, the company don’t have the machinery and resources for a total extraction.

Hutchison Telecom acquires Orange Austria

Hutchison’s Austrian arm 3 Austria has completed its anticipated acquisition of local rival Orange Austria, combining two of the countries networks.3 Austria will acquire 100 percent of Orange Austria from its current owners France Telecom (35 percent) and private-equity firm Mid Europa Partners (65 percent) for an enterprise value of EUR1.3 billion.

However, as expected, 3 Austria will then sell on Orange Austria assets worth EUR390 million to Telekom Austria. These assets include Orange’s prepaid ‘Yesss’ mobile brand, plus spectrum and base station sites. The net consideration payable by 3 Austria of EUR 0.9 billion for Orange Austria (after the sale of the assets to Telekom Austria) equates to 6.9 x earnings (EBITDA). 3 is targeting cost and capex synergies to the tune of EUR500 million from the combination.

The merger between third-placed operator Orange and fourth-placed 3 would create a stronger challenger to Austria’s two largest mobile operators, Telekom Austria’s A1 and T-Mobile.“With pro-forma 2.8 million customers, a market share of 22 percent and combined revenues of more than EUR700 million in 2011E, this transaction creates a strong and competitive top three players in the Austrian market,” said 3 Austria in a statement.

According to the latest Wireless Intelligence data, Austria had 12.7 million connections in total in Q3 2011, giving the country a mobile penetration rate of almost 150 percent.