The last time I wrote about the successful telecom venture, GrameenPhone, I shared my enthusiasm for big business partnering with non-profits to open up markets in developing countries. Because of it, small entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, ‘village phone ladies’, are renting out the use of handset airtime to some 12 million users. A shining example of the ‘win-win’ possibilities.

But sadly this partnership seems to have slipped into an unfriendly dispute. In a nutshell, the conflict is in ownership philosophy. Norway’s Telenor, who own 62% of the company, has rejected Grameen Telecom’s $427 million bid for an additional 13% stake, which would have given Grameen majority control. Instead, they want to float their stake on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. This is Bangladesh’s biggest private enterprise and so the share price under an IPO is under some speculation.

Mohammad Yunnus, of Grameen, holds a purist, co-operative, view of social business. He argues that allowing poor people to own the company that provides them with services genuinely makes it a ‘company of the people’, and this maximises social impact. Grameen Bank, the microfinance institution, is an example of just this, whereby 94% of the equity is with the borrowers: 7 million shareholders, and modest returns. “Someday GrameenPhone will become another example of a big enterprise owned by the poor” Yunnus said to a cheering Nobel Prize audience last year, which included the CEO of Telenor.

Telenor, on the other hand, want to attract commercial finance through public investors incentivised by strong growth and increasing shareholder value. GrameenPhone still has several compelling market opportunities ahead of it, including new services it could offer its users, such as mobile banking. Telenor’s deputy chief executive, Ashraful Hasan, has said: “Telenor has a clear reason for wanting to continue running the company. It is crucial to the company’s further development in what is now a very competitive market that the company is run by a professional player.” They have also put forward the argument that floating the company would give more Bangladeshis the opportunity to own it.

Personally, while I respect Yunnus’s rationale and admire his prioritisation of social impact, I also think that the poor, in this case, can get the most out of the situation simply by being demanding customers and inviting the company and its shareholders to respond with valuable and competitively priced offerings.