Etisalat pulls out of Tata Teleservices stake talks

Etisalat, which is mulling an Indian foray, has since started discussions with several telecom companies including the Videocon Group's Datacom Solutions and Essar-controlled Loop Telecom for equity.

Ravi Sharma, CEO of Datacom confirmed that Etilasat was one of the companies to which the company was talking but declined to offer details. Loop Telecom declined to comment.

Etisalat had also held talks with real estate developer Unitech which has also received a licence to operate all-India GSM services, but nothing came of them.

Etisalat's decision to withdraw from TTSL, which offers all-India services and has 20 million subscribers, came after the two parties failed to reach a "conclusive decision" on the price, according to a source close to the development.

Unconfirmed reports said Sivasankaran was seeking Rs 80-100 per share for his stake in the unlisted company, which the West Asian company deemed too high.

An e-mail query to Etisalat evoked no response and a TTSL spokesperson declined to comment. Sivasankaran, however, said that he was not selling his stake at the moment to anyone and that had had not held talks with Etilasat.

Sivasankaran had sounded out private equity and hedge funds and other financial investors in December last year to sell his TTSL stake, which he acquired in 2006. Those deals also failed over pricing issues.