Bharti Airtel has decided to acquire the wireless business of Tata Teleservices, an ET report stated. This development comes at a time when the telecom sector is facing a bloodbath due to the decreased pricing in the tariffs post the launch of Reliance Jio. According to the development, 4 crore users of Tata Teleservices will be transferred to Airtel on a cash-free basis.
According to the deal, Bharti Airtel will also overtake a part of Tata Teleservices’s spectrum liability, which is expected to be worth INR 10,000 crores. Tata currently owns around 180 MHz of spectrum in 800, 1800 and 2100 MHz across 19 circles. This comes after 4 months of continuous talks between the two companies and finally, N Chandrasekaran, the head at Tata Sons can look to focus on other verticals of Tata Sons as the telecom business was one of the loss-making verticals of the Tata Sons.
The decision was taken at a meeting held between the officials of both the companies earlier today. The team of Bharti Airtel is said to be discussing the deal internally and might announce it officially later today or tomorrow. Goldman Sachs has been advising both the companies on this transaction.
According to experts aware of the transaction, this could be a beginning of a long-term partnership between the two big business brands in the country. Post the wireless services, the two companies might also plan to work together in sectors like fibre internet, direct to home TV, overseas cable and enterprise services.
We could not reach to the spokespersons of both the companies immediately, however, a statement from either of the companies is awaited soon.