Nambiars Plan Recast Of Bpl Cellular

BPL group promoters, the Nambiar family, are planning to restructure BPL Cellular Holdings, the holding company for all the group's cellular telecom and paging businesses even as the valuation of the company has been nearly halved.

BPL Cellular had made an abortive attempt to tap the American depository receipts (ADR) markets late last year.

The recast plan involves expanding the equity capital of the company and hiving off the group's paging subsidiary, BPL Wireless Telecommunication Services Ltd. In the recast setup, BPL Cellular will be the holding company only for the group's cellular telecom ventures.

The cellular companies in the group are: BPL Mobile, which is one of the cellular licensees for Mumbai, and BPL-US West, a cellular operator in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

At present, BPL Cellular holds 60.5 per cent equity in BPL Mobile, 50.02 per cent in BPL-US West and 100 per cent of BPL Wireless.

The restructured BPL Cellular is expected to turn up a better valuation for the group's cellular ventures, besides attracting investors who are reluctant to commit funds in non-cellular businesses.

The BPL brass has been negotiating with financial investors to divest a part of the Nambiar family's stake in BPL Cellular. The $130 billion (Rs 4,68,000 crore) American International Group and Peregrine-led Asian Infra-structure Fund have been named in the past as possible buyers.

Sources said the valuation of the company