Morgan, others in race for Global Holding stake

"In October last year, GHC diluted an 8 per cent stake for $150 million to Technology Infrastructure, an offshore fund. Now it intends to dilute an additional 22 per cent stake to raise around $700 million. Many private equity players and telecom companies have evinced interests. The deal is likely to take shape soon," industry sources said.

The market capitalisation of the two listed entities was $1.7 billion as on June 31, 2008. The group recorded in excess of $600 million revenue in the last financial year.

The company had early this year said promoters intend to dilute anywhere between 9-30 per cent stake in GHC to raise $150-500 million for increasing the promoters' stake in the listed companies.

GHC holds 44 per cent in GTL and 23 per cent in GTL Infrastructure. GTL, in turn, owns 41 per cent in GTL Infrastructure.

GHC promoters have infused $101.76 million since March 2006 to enhance their stake in GTL through creeping acquisition from 26 per cent earlier. Promoters intend to hike GHC's stake in GTL to 69 per cent and to 51 per cent in GTL Infrastructure directly.

GHC has two other wholly-owned arms, Global Projects and Global Innovsource, and a 90 per cent stake in tower manufacturing arm Global Towers.

GTL is looking for acquisitions in the network planning and professional services segment. It had bought Malaysia-headquartered ADA Cellworks, UK-based Genesis Consultancy and US-based SCS for around $40 million.

GTL Infrastructure plans to invest $1.8 billion through a mix of debt and equity to increase the number of cell sites to 23,700 from around 6,360 now.

It is reportedly interested in picking up a majority stake in Essar's tower arm.

The Global Group is currently the third largest player in the network services and telecom infrastructure segment in the world preceded by Altor Equity Partners-owned Relacom and Providence Equity and Warburg Pincus-owned Telcordia.

The group has now set its sight on becoming the number-one player globally. That is why it needs to enhance its operations, sources said.

Picking up stake in Global Holding Corporation would be strategic for telecom players like ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei since they intend to ramp up their operations in the Indian telecom sector, which is witnessing tremendous growth and adding around 1.5 million cell phone users a month, they said.

The industry is changing shape with all incumbent operators trying to reach pan-India. At the same time, exiting CDMA players are moving towards launching GSM services.

Additionally, new players like Videocon, Swan, Unitech and Loop are awaiting to enter the telecom business and have already secured licences. Many more players are in the pipeline to offer 3G mobile services in the country.

These would open up further opportunity for passive infrastructure providers in the telecom segment and network services players like GTL.