Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel, India’s #1 telecom operator, will look at merger and acquisition opportunities if there is a clear policy in place.
India’s telecom minister Kapil Sibal recently said the new M&A policy would be unveiled by 15 October.
Sunil Mittal, the promoter of Airtel, which made profit of Rs 5,096 crore on revenues of Rs 45,350 crore in fiscal 2013, has the backing of Singapore Telecommunications, the single largest investor in Airtel. Recently, SingTel CEO said Airtel should be in commanding position in the consolidation space.
“I don’t think there is anybody in India who can buy us…,” Mittal said here when asked about the new M&A norms in the works and as to whether his company would be the biggest buyer or the biggest seller.
Indian mobile industry is waiting for companies such as Verizon, MTN, AT&T, etc. to look for Indian telecom assets. The forthcoming spectrum – may be in January 2014 – will pave way for the entry of big telecom companies into India. However, that will depend on the revival of global economy.
Recently, the telecom industry saw early movements in consolidation where there were initial discussion among Aircel, MTS India and Tata Teleservices. Telenor-owned Uninor is also looking for expanding in India through M&A.
Also, there were reports that Airtel would be looking at buying Loop Mobile which has presence in Mumbai.
Bharti Airtel has 192.22 million subscribers as of August-end. The company had a market capitalization of Rs.1.28 trillion as on 1 October, PTI reported from Africa.
It is also among the world’s top five telecom firms and has operations in 20 countries in Asia and Africa with total subscriber base of more than 275 million.
Although the telecom ministry had announced broad guidelines for M&As in February last year, the detailed norms are yet to be unveiled. The guidelines that have been okayed in-principle include expeditious approval to merger proposals of telecom companies if their combined market share is up to 35 percent.
The ministry will seek TRAI’s recommendation in case the resultant entity has market share of 35-60 percent.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
