Kumar Mangalam Birla will be the non-executive chairman and Balesh Sharma the new CEO of the merged entity, which will remain listed.
A new board has been constituted for the merged entity 'Vodafone Idea Ltd' with 12 directors (including six independent directors) and Kumar Mangalam Birla as its Chairman. The board has appointed Balesh Sharma as the CEO, the companies said in a joint statement. The combination will have an all-India revenue market share of 32.2 per cent and take the numero uno slot in nine telecom circles, it said adding that both Vodafone and Idea brands will continue.
Both the promoter groups - Vodafone and Aditya Birla - have confirmed their participation of up to Rs 11,000 crore and up to Rs 7,250 crore, respectively, in the issue.
Vodafone m-pesa was one of the 11 firms that was given payments bank licence by the Reserve Bank of India in 2015.
The company added 95 lakh new 4G subscribers taking its total 4G subscriber base to 7.53 crore inching closer to its peer Bharti Airtel which reported 4G customer base of 7.7 crore.
A Vodafone Group insider with more than 25 years in the telco across geographies, he's like the eyes and ears of the multinational in India.
With the new entity coming in force, Bharti Airtel will lose the tag of India's biggest telecom service provider to the new entity.
The two companies were earlier expecting to complete the merger formalities and regulatory approvals by June 30 and to start operating as one entity from July 1.
Idea Cellular will have to furnish an undertaking that it will entertain all the liabilities whenever a final decision is taken by the courts
These customers will be unable to meet the lowest recharge requirements for Jio, meaning they will either exit the market or migrate to BSNL/MTNL.
It is learnt that the defence ministry is refusing to let go of its 100 MHz spectrum, which was allotted earlier. In that case, the department of telecommunications (DoT) will be left with only 175 MW of 5G spectrum of the total 300 MHz.
The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,183.15 million at the end of May to 1,186.63 million at the end of June.
With telecom disruptor Reliance Jio not raising tariffs, incumbents Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are focusing on the minimum monthly recharge and higher first recharge offers to ensure they retain only loyal and revenue-incremental subscribers, reports Romita Majumdar.
The management plans to invest Rs 27,000 crore in 2019-20, supported by savings of around Rs 14,000 crore that it expects to come from synergising operations of merged entities.
Evolving a common work ethic and culture will be critical so that the merged entity does not lose focus on the common enemy outside -- and instead becomes more obsessed with internal turf wars.
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