Telecom Lead India: Telenor is set to auction off its telecom
business in India.
Telenor said its majority of its board members have
received approval to auction off the Indian mobile phone joint venture.
Telenor, which recently decided to scale down operations in India, will scrap the joint
venture with real estate major Unitech and migrate its business to a new
company to seek fresh operating licences.
Unitech, which owns just under a third of the JV, has
opposed Telenor’s move and said the Norwegian company cannot unilaterally scrap
the JV agreement and that it had veto rights to block any asset transfer,
Economic Times reported.
Telenor controls the JV with a 67.25 per cent ownership.
Interestingly, Telenor is yet to finalize its joint venture
partner.
Unitech Wireless has invited potential bidders to express their interest by
August 6.
Telenor is willing to participate in the auction through an Indian affiliate
company. In case there is just one bidder, it would have the right to fix the
bid price at a fair market value of Rs 4190 crore ($753 million).
Unitech’s nominee directors on the JV’s board have recorded their dissent to
such an auction.
Unitech will take legal action against the proposed auction.
Recently, Uninor decided to scale down operations in Tamil Nadu, Kerala,
Karnataka and Orissa telecom circles. The decision to bring down the business
is due to the ongoing regulatory uncertainties. Cancellation of 22 circles,
delay in spectrum auction and pricing of spectrum affected Uninor’s long term
business in Indian telecom market.
Uninor will give more focus on Mumbai, Maharashtra &
Goa, UP East, UP West, Bihar and Jharkhand, Kolkata, West Bengal, Andhra
Pradesh and Gujarat. Uninor will be bidding for these nine circles during the
forthcoming spectrum auction.
editor@telecomlead.com
