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Bharti Airtel-Tata Tele Merger
Fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved the merger of Tata Teleservices with Bharti Airtel as consolidation in the telecom sector becomes a reality.Airtel, which is acquiring Tata Teleservices virtually for free, will be getting around 71 MHz of liberalised spectrum and 40 million customers to add to its kitty as it gears up to fight bigger rivals in the form of Vodafone-Idea Cellular combine and also Reliance Jio.The telecom sector is looking forward to a scenario where there will be three big private operators along with state-run BSNL. There may be smaller operators in the form of Aircel and Reliance Communications (RCom). Although RCom has made it clear that it is going to shut down its 2G and 3G business and concentrate only on 4G after its merger with Aircel was called off due to delay in approvals. As per a CCI order, the proposed combination of Tata Teleservices and Bharti Airtel has been approved. The merger will also need approvals from other .
Bharti Airtel's takeover of Tata Teleservices' consumer mobile business will bolster its subscriber and revenue market share but could raise integration risk at a time when the Sunil Mittal-led company is also combining operations with Telenor, S&P Global Ratings has said. S&P said however that Airtel's rating is "unaffected" by its recently-announced acquisition of the Tata Group firm. "...in our view, this deal increases integration risk for Bharti because the company will be simultaneously integrating the operations of Telenor India (acquired last fiscal) and Tata Teleservices over the next 12-18 months, while responding to the intense competition," it said. The S&P Global Ratings note added however that it expects Bharti to be able to manage the integration risk because it has successfully managed such deals in the past, particularly in the African markets. The deal will be neutral to Bharti's leverage in 2017-18 and 2018-19, it said. Airtel will assume a