OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian telecoms group Telenor <TEL.OL> said its second-quarter earnings would take a hit from "errors" discovered at Grameenphone <GRAE.DH>, its Bangladeshi telecoms division.
"Grameenphone has discovered some erroneous omissions with regards to sales, marketing and commission payments and associated costs relating to non-deductible expenses for prior periods," Grameenphone said in is second-quarter earnings statement on Sunday.
"As a consequence, its sales, marketing and commission expenses and associated non-deductible costs were understated," it added.
Telenor said this would mean taking a one-off loss in the second quarter of 2019 for the group as a whole, with its expectations for earnings before interest, tax, debt and amortization (EBITDA) lowered by 299 million crowns ($35.05 million).
Net profit guidance would be lowered by 622 million crowns ($72.91 million) in the quarter, Telenor added.
The company declined to comment further on Monday.
Telenor shares traded 0.4% lower at 0908 GMT while the Oslo benchmark index <.OSEBX> was down 0.2%.
"That one-off cost is not important, but it raises new questions - why did this happen, is there a risk that there could be more of this coming, or a risk that this could happen in other markets and so on," said Stefan Billing, analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux. "This creates a bit of uncertainty."
The Norwegian firm holds a 55.8% stake in Grameenphone, while Grameen Telecom holds 34.2%.
Telenor will publish its second-quarter results on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche and Victoria Klesty; Editing by Jan Harvey and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
