Idea Cellular, the country’s third-largest telecom company owned by Kumar Mangalam Birla, has announced merger with Vodafone India. The company said on Monday that its board stamped the merger proposal.
Under this, Vodafone India and its wholly-owned subsidiary Vodafone Mobile Services Ltd and Aditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular will merge and will become the country’s largest telecom company by overtaking the new company Bharti Airtel. According to today’s announcement, Idea and Vodafone will complete the merger process next year.
Vodafone’s share of the new company is 45 percent while Idea’s stake will be 26 percent. Going forward, part of Aditya Birla Group and Vodafone will be equal. Idea’s valuation has been valued at Rs 72,2000 crore.
According to filing, AB Group has the right to buy 9.5 percent of the new company at the rate of 130 rupees per share. After this declaration, Idea shares rose 2.5%.
What will be the advantages
According to a report by the brokerage company CLSA, revenue of the new company will be more than Rs 80,000 crore, which will be 43 percent of the total revenue of the country’s telecom industry. Simultaneously, the new company has 40 percent mobile subscribers in the Indian market.
Not only that, this company alone will have 25 percent of the total spectrum allocated. In this case, it will have to sell 1 percent of the spectrum so that the rules related to its limits can be followed.
Merger will merge all the Vodafone and Idea shares, except for 42 percent of Vodafone’s shares in Indus Towers. Merger will be implemented with the issuing of new shares of Idea in Vodafone and Vodafone India will be separated from its parent company.
Last year, Reliance Jio, a company that came to power in the telecom market in the country, is fast-tracking. The company has been successful in connecting customers on a large scale by giving free voice and data services under the Welcome Welcome and then Happy New Year offers.
Other telecom companies are also doing the utmost
Last month, Bharti Airtel had also informed the stock market that it would buy Assets of Telenor India. Norway’s Telenor company is going to extend its business from the Indian market when Reliance Jio has managed to connect 10 million customers with them.
Vodafone and Idea’s new merged company will become India’s largest telecom company. Currently Bharti Airtel is the largest company in the country. According to sources, both the CEO and the CFO are seeking posts in the company formed after Vodafone merger. He will not have any objection to declaring Kumar Mangalam Birla, the chairman of the new company.
The CEO of this company can be made a Global Executive of Vodafone PLC, this information will be given by two sources. A third source said that the search for top level recruit has also started. Aditya Birla Group, who owns Vodafone Plc and Idea Cellular, did not respond to questions in the Economic Times in this regard.
In a first report, the Economic Times estimated that because of the consolidation, the telecom industry could reduce 1,00,000 jobs. These jobs can end in many telecom operators and infrastructure companies.
Meanwhile, Vodafone has put off an offical offsite, which is fine in the beginning of March and it happens in late April. Some brand and marketing expenses have also been stopped.
Changes to the advantages
This year, Vodafone India had changed the reporting structure of senior management. The company had made the Chief Operating Officer Balesh Sharma a reporting authority. Earlier, senior executives of the company used to report to Vodafone India CEO
Now both the companies have decided to share Active Infrastructure. It also includes wireless equipment. This means that if there is a merger then it will not be very difficult.
Vodafone and Aditya Birla Group had said in January that they are working on the possibility of merger all the assets of both the companies except for Vodafone’s 42% stake in the Indus Tower.
If equal rights are given to both the companies after the merger, then for that the new shares of Idea will have to be issued to Vodafone, from which the British Vodafone PLC will separate itself from Vodafone India.