With the completion of the acquisition of Hutch Essar earlier this month, British mobile major Vodafone is chalking out strategies to relaunch the rechristened 'Vodafone Essar' brand in India.
Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin is expected to visit India next month to reconstitute the board of Hutch Essar, which would be renamed as Vodafone Essar.
Vodafone has rejected a restructuring call by an activist investor lobby that would have unlocked up to $75 billion to shareholders, saying such business strategies could have prevented it from recent acquisitions such as Hutch-Essar in India.
Cut-throat competition, high spectrum costs, and frequent flip-flops in government policies have made it difficult for Vodafone to make money in the country.
In a report, JP Morgan said Vodafone needed to raise exposure to high-growth emerging markets and offset prospective fall in EBITDA in Europe.
India's telecom sector has been through dizzying peaks, troughs, policy U-turns, court battles, brutal competition, and daily controversies. India could go back to a private sector duopoly with just Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surviving the mayhem. The third player, Vodafone Idea, could be history.
Ballooning debt forces more and more Indian promoters to sell out to global majors and PE players.
The company has tied up with five distributors this year.
The financial year ending Saturday saw such big-ticket events that set the directional tone for the country's business journey.
Ajit Mishra, Vice President, Research, Religare Broking, answers readers's queries on stocks they own or want to buy.
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