- The Hindujas are believed to be eying a national level telecom licence in India, after others like Videocon, HFCL, BPL, Parsvnath, DLF, Unitech, Indiabulls and others, reports Moneycontrol. The Hindujas had sold their 5 percent stake in Essar for $200 million in 2006, and later tried to buy Hutch alongwith Russian telco Altimo and Qatar Telecom. As per the report, the Hindujas would be open to a foreign tie-up, but are likely to hold on to a majority stake.
– Another real estate player planning to apply for a licence is Kishore Biyani’s Future Group, as per this moneycontrol.com report. The others are Parsvnath Developers, DLF, Unitech and Indiabulls…heh, now even real estate developers denying that they’re entering this space makes news: moneycontrol had a story on Akruti Nirman denying plans to enter the telecom space. MD Vimal Shah says he has no explanation for why real estate developers are getting into telecom, except that both are infrastructure plays.
– Public sector telco MTNL has submitted a bid in the range of $100-120 million to acquire Sri Lankan fixed line operator Suntel, reports ToI. Others eying this acquisition include a consortium led by John Keells Holdings and VSNL. Suntel as 3 lakh subscribers, had medium term debentures listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. It operates in Nepal and Maldives as well. Airtel is another Indian telco with ops in Sri Lanka, albeit mobile.
– Airtel has bid for the second mobile licence in Qatar, while Reliance Communications has pulled out , reports ET. Others vying for the licence include Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), AT&T (NYSE: T), Bahrain based Batelco, Etisalat, Zain and the Argos consortium. State owned Qatar Telecom has a monopoly, with teledensity over 100 percent (multiple phones per person) among 800,000 residents.
– CDMA Operator Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (TTML) intends to raise $200 million from foreign investors by means of Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCBs) reports BS. The company will use the money for expansion of network in Mumbai and Maharashtra circles and adding more value added services, though it appears that a timeline hasn’t been set yet.
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