The Company, its vision and objectives, BII Investments, and BII contributions

Worldlink Communications Limited (hereinafter referred as “WorldLink”) is the largest Internet and Network Service Provider in Nepal and one of the most prominent IT companies. It operates one of the finest and the largest fiber backbone and access network across the country, serving 73 out of 77 districts providing services like high-speed Internet up to 600Mbps along with HD IPTV services.

Over the 27 years, WorldLink has become the most valuable brand in the IT industry of Nepal. The vision of the company “To connect everyone, anywhere, all the time.” was joined by the BII, UK's development finance institution in year 2019 by acquiring 10% stake in the Company. At present, BII owns 13.46% of the company’s total share. WorldLink has been expanding its services to the rural portions of Nepal and to the remote villages. WorldLink is working towards availing internet to the under-privileged people staying in the remote areas thus bridging the great divide between the connected and unconnected. It is creating many employments in the market and helping in making the country’s economy stronger.  In recognition of Worldlink’s overall contribution, Nepal Government has invited WorldLink to be a part of IT taskforce such as National IT Infrastructure Development Committee and contribute to the development of IT in the country.

Wi-Fi Mobility

“WorldLink has been a pioneer in deploying public Wi-Fi to bridge the digital divide by enabling internet access to users across Nepal, including in some of the most remote areas. The Wi-Fi deployment gave a tremendous boost to the Company’s CSR initiative and helped the under-connected and underprivileged to leverage the benefits of the internet. High quality internet access is an essential ingredient to ensuring access to jobs, education, healthcare and more. With the Public Wi-Fi platform, WorldLink is able to sustainably expand its Wi-Fi coverage in Nepal, enabling more people to get online.

How Free Wi-Fi service helps the community and country.

Study shows that, increase in internet penetration has direct incremental impact on per capita GDP of a country. Broadband service penetration (year on year) in Nepal can be seen from the table below.

To reduce the mobile internet penetration difference in today’s digital world, WorldLink has been providing Free Wi-Fi in public places where user can use Wi-Fi hotspot service in various locations all over Nepal irrespective of their ability to pay or not. This service has been helping to boost the social and economic development of the country. Worldlink understands the importance of remaining connected to internet both inside the house and outside. To meet this requirement WorldLink has built more than FREE 14000 Wi-Fi hotspots across Nepal. Currently we have Free Wi-Fi hotspots across various restaurants, banks, hospitals, temples, parks, airports, malls and various public places. We are continuously trying to expand this service to new areas in future so that no one remains unconnected in this digital world. In Dec. 2019, we build our hotspot in various stadiums for South Asian Games where around 25,000 users connected to our hotspot during the entire event.

Network coverage in 73 districts out of 77 districts including the most remote areas of Karnali

WorldLink has always remained committed to delivering excellence in service and development. Hence, our vision is to connect everyone, anywhere. This took us to 8 rural and remote districts of Karnali region, where we are able to provide internet services for the first time.

Awards and Recognition

• Highest Income Taxpayer in ICT Sector - 2017, 2019
• Digital Opportunity and Inclusion Award - 2020 WITSA Global
• ICT Excellence Awards ceremony, Malaysia for Broadband in Karnali
• National ICT award 2019.
• Outstanding User Organization Award – Oceanian Computing Industry Organization, Tokyo, November 8, 2018.
• Award of Excellence for Innovation in Emerging Sectors of the province- ICT, 2022: Madhesh Province
• Winner of Business as Unusual - 2019 in Nokia Get To Fast Faster 2019, Singapore.
• Winner of Broadband Service Innovation - Nokia - Get to Fast Faster, Conrad, Tokyo, 2017 and Singapore, 2022

Commitment to ESG for Sustainability

There is greater need to focus on ESG to accelerate with climate change, workplace diversity, employee welfare, human capital management and supply chain sustainability and resilience remaining forefront issues. The pandemic further exposed the significant social, economic, and reputational costs of not addressing ESG issues, notably systemic racism, employee safety, health and well- being and supply chain resilience. The crisis in Ukraine has further made us realized the importance of ESG Hence, it is important for companies like ours to create and preserve long-term value through commitments to ESG for sustainability:

• ESG Goal Setting and Accountability
• Workplace Diversity
• Reshaping of Human Capital Management
• Supply Chain Sustainability and Resilience
• New Expectations for “Active” Board Oversight
• Accelerating Disclosure and Moving to Assurance and Integration

BII team, through their TA (BII plus) program, has been continuously helping us in delivering the commitments to ESG.

1. ESG Goal Setting and Accountability

ESG Committee and its sub-committee, HSE Committee, have been formed to ensure that Worldlink adopts, implements, and manages Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) practices in accordance with CDC’s Code of Responsible Investing and the Environmental and Social Action Plan agreed with the Company. The Committee’s scope of responsibility includes:

• Providing strategic advice and guidance to the executive management team in relation to systemic and strategic HSE issues which affect the Company’s business model and strategy.
• Ensuring that the Company has in place adequate and robust systems for monitoring the HSE and Social management and performance of the Company, in accordance with applicable legislation and Good International Industry Practice (GIIP).
• Monitoring the implementation of Environmental and Social Action Plans and any corrective action plans that may be developed in due course.
• Making recommendations to and assisting the management in the updating of the EHS and Social policies, standards, and management plans of the Company in order to ensure continuous improvement in HSE performance.
• Assisting the Management team with general and, if requested, specific guidance on interpretation of HSE principles.
• Approving the appointment, removal and/or replacement of senior personnel responsible for the implementation, operation, and maintenance of the HSE management systems and plans, and Compliance program of the Company.
• Overseeing any Company investigations relating to breaches of HSE laws, regulations, and standards and/or the Company’s HSE policies, management systems and plans.
• Monitoring and supervising the updating and evolution of the Compliance program of the Company and reviewing the Company’s compliance with any legal, regulatory, and contractual provisions.
• Monitoring and supervising internal Governance policies and initiatives.
• Approving the EHS and Social actions and requirements to be passed onto a potential investee company which the Company may be seeking to acquire.

2. Workplace Diversity

The Company is committed to being an inclusive organization that recognizes and fosters diversity consistent with Worldlink’s Values, Employment Principles and Code of Conduct. Our Embracing Diversity and Inclusion Principle describes that we treat everyone equally, with dignity and respect. Pan Nepal, our employees embrace diverse backgrounds and perspectives, which allows us all to achieve our best.

We maximize the potential of every employee when we allow everyone to be themselves at work, and when we treat all employees with respect and dignity. The best thinking can come from any part of the organization, so employees must have the freedom to share their perspectives and challenge each other. We actively pursue equality, diversity, and inclusion by:

• Building awareness and understanding across our organization, through an extensive range of techniques and approaches, to instill an inclusive mindset at all levels.
• Proactively finding and engaging top talent from diverse backgrounds.
• Creating an environment where all individuals can thrive, by providing opportunities for development, connections, and communities.

3. Reshaping of Human Capital Management

We understand that the real value comes from investing in augmented intelligence and utilizing technology to increase the overall human capital of our organization. We have tailored our ability to provide real-time training and give employees more impactful opportunities for better positioned to drive innovation and competitive advantage, while increasing overall employee satisfaction. We believe in the following key areas:

a)     Education as a retention tool: To gain a deeper understanding of attracting and retaining top talents, training never stops at Worldlink.

b)     Continue to evaluate and implement new technologies that help make employees better at what they do.

c)     To recognize that “our people are our greatest asset” and to seek to demonstrate a commitment to this claim by putting in place policies and practices that are specifically designed to enable an organization to manage the identification, recruitment, and development of human capital.

d)     Employee wellbeing and resilience: Expanding the definition of benefits and the need for greater personalization to suit diverse needs is blurring the traditional delineation of responsibilities of designing work policies, compensation programs, benefit programs, skill development, career enablement and wellbeing programs.

4. Supply Chain Sustainability and Resilience

Resilience to disruptions and sustainability are both of paramount importance to supply chains. These have become even more significant for organization like ours which has presence pan Nepal. An effective supply chain is critical for the growth and success of our organization. We embrace the following steps, which we believe will help us in making our supply chains far more resilient.

a)     Map multi-tier supply chain

b)     Assess the impact of the single source risk.

c)     Find alternate sources where possible and practical.

d)     Monitor suppliers for risks.

e)     Mitigate risks with continuous design.

f)       Model and implement networks of the future.

g)     Turbocharge sustainability and diversity initiatives.

h)     Tighten the cyber security protocols.

i)        Proactively engage with government agencies and peers in the industry.

5. New Expectations for “Active” Board Oversight

We believe that:

• Boards today, in exercising their oversight function, need to pay much more attention to a far broader range of issues than they ever have before.
• Boards need to identify which issues are relevant and material to their companies and to put in place oversight mechanisms that will allow the board to monitor the issues, receive inputs and track company progress.
• This is a dynamic process that, in some ways, requires boards to go back to basics and to assess what it is they should be tracking and monitoring and how they determine which matters require their oversight time and attention, and then periodically to revisit and reassess those decisions.

6. Accelerating Disclosure and Moving to Assurance and Integration

We understand and appreciate the contribution that integrated reporting assurance can make and importantly understand what it is they are buying particularly when it comes to the difference between the two main types of assurance - limited and reasonable- and what is required of assurance professional and organizations to achieve reasonable integrated reporting assurance.

We believe the move towards reasonable assurance of integrated reports should progressively provide higher value assurance activities for the organization, its investors, and other stakeholders. It should lead to improvements in the quality of integrated reports and underlying business practices and help enhance the connectivity of financial statements to broader narrative information.

There is focused and continuous communication between the investor relation team of the Company and the BII team. These internal oversight mechanisms of BII are operating effectively, not only for the protection of BII’s investment in the Company but also for the improvement in overall governance of the Company. Out of these 27 years long journey, BII has been with us for more than 3 years now. The impact of BII’s presence is such that the Company has not only maintained its market leading position, but also scaled many folds and improved in several facets of governance. The transformation of Worldlink can be seen from the table below:

BII investment decisions’ criteria and balance between financial returns with achieving impact.

As per our observation, like any other DFI, BII also has multilayer screening and approval process, up to the Investment Committee. There is a good balance between the BII team responsible for financial returns and the team responsible for achievement of impact. The process includes comprehensive due diligence in several areas. The decisions to invest are made at valuations, which get arrived from application of appropriate methods suitable for respective industry. At the same time, the Impact team scrutinizes existing capability and readiness of the organization for all three elements of ESG. The deficits found, if any, in capacity and/or readiness are covered through agreement on several action plans (like ESAP, BIAP etc.). The same goes for commitments from the investees in the relevant segment of the Investment Agreement.

Additionally, there is continuous monitoring/tracking, by conducting periodic discussions and review meetings with stakeholders, on both financial performance and ESG by respective team of BII. TA (BII Plus) program has been an additional tool in balancing financial returns with achieving impact.

Influence of external events in the investment decisions of BII (e.g., in response to the crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine, the depreciation of Sterling etc.)

As per our observation, like any other DFI, BII’s investment decisions do also get influenced by external events. In the globalized and connected world, no country can escape from the impacts of such external events. We understand that it is completely fair and wise to prioritize things during the time of uncertainties caused by such external events.

Due diligence by BII prior to making investment decisions and benchmarking with best practice.

In the case of investment made in our Company, we observed and cooperated comprehensive due diligence of all areas (business plan, financial, legal, taxation, HR etc.). These due diligence processes were among the best practices and performed by the best professionals.

BII evaluation of the impact of its investments

As per our observation, impact is at the focal point of BII’s investment decisions. BII does not select opportunity purely on the merit of financial returns. The non-financial value that BII provides to its investees is captured through a high-level inventory of its activities in the areas of Business Integrity (BI), ESG and TA (BII Plus). The initial findings and/or declarations are captured in the database as baseline data (starting point). The periodic reviews and observations against those baseline data through Development Impact Reporting (DIR) not only helps BII to understand the impact of its investments, but also guides BII to decide the timing and need of appropriate interventions.

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