Telecom major Bharti
Airtel has called off its plans to acquire business and assets of Mumbai
based Loop Mobile, for about Rs 700 crore, as the Department of Telecom is yet
to clear the deal.
"Loop Mobile and Bharti applied to DoT for approval of
the business transfer in March 2014. The approval for the transaction is still
awaited from the relevant authorities as a result of which Bharti Airtel has
withdrawn from the proposed transaction causing huge loss to the company,"
Loop Mobile spokesperson told PTI.
DoT is yet to give clearance to the deal as it estimates
that Loop Mobile and its sister concern Loop Telecom owe about Rs 808 crore in
spectrum and other charges to the government.
Loop Mobile's permit in Mumbai is expiring on November 29
and the company did not purchase spectrum in February auction which was
mandatory for continuing its operations.
Airtel had signed a deal with Loop in February this year to
buy business and assets of Loop Mobile in Mumbai under a strategic agreement
for about Rs 700 crore.
Under the agreement, Loop Mobile's 3 million subscribers (at
that time) in Mumbai were suppose to join Airtel's over 4 million subscribers,
making it largest network in the metropolitan city. Loop Mobile will not be
able to migrate its subscribers to Airtel as originally envisaged. No immediate
comments were received from Airtel.
Private sector lender Axis Bank has told the DoT that
Rs 215-crore loan to Loop Mobile will be at risk if the deal of the
Mumbai-based operator to sell its assets to Bharti Airtel is not approved. A
consortium led by Axis Bank had given advanced loans of Rs 350 crore to Loop
Mobile and the current outstanding stood at Rs 215 crore, according to a
communication by the bank to DoT.
Loop Mobile has applied to Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India (TRAI) for release of additional porting codes for facilitating port-out
(transfer) of all its subscribers. The company had over 17 lakh customer in
August as per data released by TRAI.
0 comments:
Post a Comment