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| RIL reconnects with telecom after 5 years |
| BS Reporter / Mumbai Jun 12, 2010, 00:05 IST |
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 India’s largest private firm to buy 95% in Nahata-owned Infotel for Rs 4,800 crore; to get broadest BWA footprint.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) will buy Mahendra Nahata-promoted Infotel Broadband Services for Rs 4,800 crore, marking the re-entry of India’s largest private sector firm into the booming telecom market.
RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani was forced to hand over the telecom business to his brother Anil when they broke up the Reliance empire five years ago. The acquisition of Infotel became possible after the two brothers ended a non-compete accord a month ago.
Minutes after the acquisition announcement, Anil Ambani, who controls the country's second-largest telecom company, Reliance Communications, welcomed RIL's entry into telecom.
Infotel is a two-year-old entity, with the stated objective to roll out WiMax across all circles in India. RIL said it would buy 95 per cent of Infotel, which hours earlier became the only company to buy nationwide licences to offer wireless broadband internet services.
For the time being, RIL will go for only the lucrative corporate bandwidth market, or the business of selling telecom and internet services to companies rather than individuals.
Unlisted Infotel is the only firm to win broadband spectrum in all 22 zones in India in an auction that ended today. The firm is paying Rs 12,848 crore for the spectrum and sources familiar with the developments said RIL would pay this fee.
Nahata said the company was in talks with RIL before the BWA auction.
RIL will invest by subscribing to fresh equity capital at par to be issued by Infotel. The RIL share gained 3 per cent today to close at Rs 1,046.25 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
While third-generation (3G) spectrum allows high-speed internet access and data transfer on mobile phones, broadband spectrum would enable firms to provide high-speed wireless data links with better coverage than fixed-line broadband.
RIL said it saw the broadband opportunity as a new frontier of the knowledge economy, in which it could take a leadership position and provide India with an opportunity to be in the forefront among the countries providing world-class 4G network and services. A single 20-MHz TDD spectrum, when used with LTE (Long Term Evolution), has the potential of providing greater capacity when compared to existing communication infrastructure in the country, the company said.
RIL said its initiative will usher in a wireless broadband revolution across the country and it planned to create state-of-the-art technology using an asset light strategy. RIL will forge several strategic relations with a host of leading global technology players, service providers, infrastructure providers, application developers, device manufacturers and others to leapfrog India to the 4G revolution.
Mukesh Ambani termed the deal as the next wave of value creation opportunity in the wireless broadband space.
RIL has re-entered telecom at a time when the sector is going through a lot of pain in terms of reduced voice rates. “The management seems to have made up its mind to enter the sector. The valuations in the sector are at their lowest. We might see Reliance Communications and Reliance Industries go for a merger or some kind of association in one or two years down the line,” said S P Tulsian of sptulsian.com.
Broadband penetration in India is as low as 1 per cent. While some analysts see this as an opportunity, some say monetisation from this service will be an uphill task. “WiMax, as of now, is not a proven technology across the world. There is no substantial ecosystem which has been developed in India as well. It will take a few months for RIL to start services and we will know their strategy only after they offer their services,” said Harit Shah, Analyst at Karvy Stock Broking.
Jagannadham Thunuguntla, equity head of SMC Capitals, said it is common to pay a premium in an acquisition.
“We do not know the nuances of the deal. Sometimes, the right target is not available. The amount of equity which is available for acquisition might have been an issue. There are a number of ifs and buts in a deal,” he said.
RIL with a turnover of Rs 2,00,400 crore had a cash profit of Rs 27,933 crore, net profit of Rs 16,236 crore and net worth of Rs 1,37,171 crore as of March 31, 2010. The company, experts said, has the financial muscle to venture into a new sector.
RIL has laid an optical fibre cable (OFC) network to connect its refineries, pipeline network, retail outlets, petrol pumps and logistics business — similar to Gailnet or Railnet.
However, there is a huge amount of unlit (unused) fibre with the company which it could utilise to offer broadband services such as Internet Protocol TV (IPTV). It could also be used to enter the long-distance telephony segment and for relaying entertainment services.
However, the company, till now, did not have a “last mile” solution which can help it enter the customers’ homes, hence it would have had to sell bandwidth to internet service providers (ISPs).
Hence, a logical way of entering the telecom sector for Mukesh Ambani at this late stage was to either buy out a broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum winner, or acquire an existing 2G player. It has done so with Infotel now, analysts said.
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