E-Paper
Batelco, RCOM cable biz deal falls through
Talks between Bahrain-based Batelco and Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RCOM) for selling the latter’s international undersea cable business have fallen through.
Talks between Bahrain-based Batelco and Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RCOM) for selling the latter’s international undersea cable business have fallen through.
RCOM informed the stock exchanges on Saturday that it was no loner in discussions with Batelco for selling equity in Reliance Globalcom Ltd, its global communications service business unit.
In March, the company had informed stock exchanges that it was in discussions with a Batelco-led consortium of investors, to sell a stake in Reliance
Globalcom. The company expected that it would be valued at close to $1 billion, said sources.
RCOM’s letter to the National Stock Exchange, however, states that “Samena Capital, in a proposed consortium with certain other global PE funds, is at an advanced stage of the process of due diligence and completion of definitive documents in relation to the acquisition of Reliance Globalcom Ltd. The intended time line for completion is end of May 2013.”
The deal is important for RCOM as it is currently under a debt of R37,000 crore. It recently announced an agreement for leasing of its optical fibre cable network to Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm. It is likely to announce a similar deal for tower business with RJI.
