In a show-cause notice, the information and broadcasting ministry asked Bharti Telemedia to furnish explanation failing which the government could consider suspending the licence till such time the company obtains necessary approvals from FIPB and meet the eligibility conditions. A Bharti spokesperson said the company has complied to all licence conditions in its DTH venture and the same has been communicated to the government.
The move comes a few days after billionaire businessman Elon Musk tweeted that his Starlink internet services would be available in India as soon as it gets regulatory approvals next year. Musk's Starlink, which plans to have a constellation of 40,000 low-orbit satellites, recently started offering high-speed internet in the US as part of its beta launch phase.
Warid Telecom, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Dhabi Group, offers mobile telecom services with a user base of over 2.9 million in Bangladesh.
The market regulator, in a notification on Tuesday, said MTN would only need to make an open offer when the GDRs issued by Bharti for the takeover are converted into equity shares with voting rights. For now, Sebi has given an exemption, saying the proposed deal structure does not require an open offer since MTN's shareholding in Bharti will only be through GDRs.
As per the latest data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Vodafone Idea -- born last year from the merger of older operators Vodafone India and Idea Cellular -- continues to be the largest operator with 38.75 crore consumers and 33.36 per cent market share in the wireless segment as on May 31, 2019.
India Inc said the Foreign Trade Policy would give a significant push to manufactured goods and agriculture- and labour-intensive exports.
Bharti Enterprises, the holding company of Bharti Airtel and other businesses such as insurance and retail is aiming to achieve $10 billion revenue by 2010 and become a strong conglomerate a decade later, its chairman Sunil Mittal said on Monday.
Zain Telecom on Wednesday said it would earn $3.3 billion from sale of its African assets to Bharti Airtel for $10.7 billion even as the Indian operator said the deal is well-priced.
In his first public appearance after talks were called off on September 30, Mittal, who is CMD of Bharti Airtel said, "No further talks with MTN and the current round is over."
Indian telecom czar Sunil Mittal and NRI businessman Anil Agarwal are among the four Indians featuring in the list of '48 Heroes of Philanthropy' compiled by business publication Forbes.
Bharti will have to deal with 15 different regulatory regimes in Africa as opposed to just one in India.
With investors seeking clarity from the market tribunal SAT on Bharti Airtel's proposed mega deal with MTN, the Sunil Mittal company today said it is still in discussion with the South African firm.
They have lost more than $13 billion from their combined wealth, but still the two Ambani brothers have moved higher on Forbes' latest list of the world's ten richest CEOs, while Sunil Mittal has joined the league and Lakshmi Mittal has slipped two places.
Senior Bhartiya Janata Party General Secretary Arun Jaitley on Friday dismissed speculations about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi becoming a challenge to the party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani. "Politics is not so juvenile that Anil Ambani or Sunil Mittal can get anybody in the PM's seat," Jaitley affirmed while talking to reporters at the BJP headquarters in Delhi.
People who know Mr Ambani, estimated by Forbes as the world's sixth richest man with a net worth of about $42bn, say the deal is typical of his aggressive style.
Indian firms, including Tata Steel, in the past have formed SPVs to acquire foreign companies to protect local operations and also to avoid legal hindrances. The SPV may be registered in a tax-haven country, like Mauritius or Bahamas, the sources said. The move to float an SPV will help Bharti Airtel to continue being listed on Indian stock exchanges, while MTN's promoters will be given a stake in the SPV.
The proposed $23-billion mega deal between Bharti Airtel and South Africa's MTN would be India's biggest-ever M&A deal. Let us now take a look at the 10 largest M&A transactions involving an Indian company until now
The key team members are in place. Prateek Agrawal, the equity head is from ABN AMRO AMC, Sujay Das, the fixed income head came from DSP Merrill Lynch AMC and Nanda Kishore S, the marketing head is from Sundaram BNP Paribas AMC. Dasgupta himself is from Deutsche AMC. Bharti-AXA has a 35-member strong team, which would be expanded to 70 by June.
Not too much is known about the middle-aged Arifuddin who is Vavasi's major shareholder, except for the fact that he is a civil engineer from Karnataka and started the group around a decade ago.
The company, according to industry sources, is hoping to get an FIPB approval before that. Market sources said the sales team has sounded out October 8 as the launch date. Government had earlier asked Bharti group to seek a separate FIPB approval within three months for its upcoming DTH services.
The delegation held meetings with the state department and the White House, besides meeting the US corporate leadership, policy makers and think tanks. Prominent among those the delegation met included Jim Steinberg, the Deputy Secretary of State at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of state department.
Bharti Airtel boss Sunil Mittal already heads the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Former BPL Mobile boss Rajeev Chandrasekhar is slated to take over as Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) president.
The Cellular Operators Association of India, the lobby of GSM players, has already petitioned telecom tribunal TDSAT challenging the government's decision to alow dual technology for mobile services and also spectrum allocation norms as suggested by the telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
The Department of Telecommunication and mobile service providers, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Communications failed to reach a consensus on the spectrum issue during a meeting held on Wednesday. According to sources, Reliance Communications Chairman Anil Ambani raised the issue of extra spectrum being held by GSM operators. He asked how over 6.2 MHz of radio waves have been given to GSM players beyond their contractual agreement.
The Department of Telecommunications has called a meeting of the heads of all leading telecom companies offering GSM technology services on November 21 to resolve contentious issues that have arisen following recent changes in telecom policy.
The Wall Street Journal quoting two people familiar with the situation said Bharti has contacted West Asian sovereign wealth funds for additional cash to back its MTN bid for a majority stake. Further, the paper quoted another person and said that Bharti has already negotiated about $12 billion in financing from a group of banks that includes Standard Chartered PLC, but the deal may require more resources.
Sunil Mittal's plan to merge his Bharti Airtel - India's biggest mobile-phone operator -with South Africa's MTN, coupled with the company's 3G foray, is likely to put pressure on its balance sheet, as the estimated cash requirement would be Rs 40,475 crore (Rs 404.75 billion) in this fiscal.
It's celebration time for Bharti Airtel, which last week became the third telecom brand in the world to cross the magic 100 million-subscriber mark in a single country. The gap between Airtel and its nearest competitor, Vodafone, is now about 26 million subscribers.
Easily the biggest high-power gathering and by far the starriest event staged in Gujarat, concluded at the Reliance petro township in Jamnagar on Sunday.
Indian CEOs are increasingly finding representation on some of the world's most influential policy bodies.
In its drive to expand telecom services both in mobile and fixed line segments, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel on Tuesday awarded a $900 million contract to Nokia Siemens to deploy equipments in various circles in which it operates.
Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Teletech has been presented the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council award for achieving the highest exports in telecommunications equipment during 2001-02.
Confirming the SOX compliance exercise, a senior Bharti group executive, however, denied that the company was considering a foreign listing.
Striking a different chord with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who prescribed a social charter for the industry, Confederation of Indian Industry's new president Sunil Mittal on Friday
For innovation, Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank are followed by Infosys, TCS and HCL Technologies in the top five. These are followed by Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications, Wipro, Satyam, M&M and Hindustan Lever (now known as Hindustan Unilever in the order of their rankings.
Earlier this week Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao had said, 'one day we will discuss (Vodafone and Bharti Group) what to do with the stake. To have a discussion on any issue we need to have both the partners.' In 2005, Vodafone had bought a 10 per cent stake in Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd (BTVL) for Rs 6,700 crore (Rs 67 billion).
India has the third highest number of billionaires in the world after the US and China, according to a new list by the prestigious Forbes magazine, which said Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani reclaimed his spot as Asia's richest person, dethroning Chinese business tycoon Jack Ma who was the richest person in the region a year ago.
The cumulative market value of the companies belonging to the groups led by the five wealthiest of the country Ambani siblings Mukesh and Anil, real estate magnate Kushal Pal Singh, software czar Azim Premji and telecom tycoon Sunil Mittal -- today fell to about Rs 8.5 trillion.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is believed to have left it to telecom minister A Raja to resolve the tangle over allocation of spectrum, an issue that has brought industry bigwigs like Reliance Communications' Anil Ambani and Bharti Airtel's Sunil Mittal face to face.
B K Modi-promoted Spice Communications will decide before November 12 whether it will pull out of the COAI's petition in the TDSAT, where the association has challenged the government's decision allowing dual technology use and enhanced subscriber-based spectrum allocation.
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