So did they just buy to sell? If this report from the Economic Times is to be believed, Allianz Infratech, which has licenses to operate telecom services in the states of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, is likely to sell the licenses to Swan Telecom. Swan, itself a new telecom operator, has inked a deal with UAEs Etisalat, selling 45 percent for $900 million. ET says the Allianz deal “may run into hundreds of crores”, while Swan had only paid Rs. 30 crores for the licenses. Swan has licenses for 13 circles, and the Allianz acquisition would increase that number to 15 of the 22 circles.
As per the records published by the Department of Telecom, Allianz’ Universal Access Service (UAS) license for Bihar and Madhya Pradesh came into effect on 31st July and 1st August 2008 respectively. Take a look at this MS Excel sheet from the DoTs website, issued on the 31st of August.
This is the only grant of a license since January 25th 2008, when a majority of licenses were handed out. In fact, here’s a CNBC-TV18 report, according to which Allianz Infra failed to bag a Letter of Intent for telecom services.
The initial rejection had been due to the fact that their net worth was less than the mandated Rs. 1350 crores. Does that mean that other companies who did not get a license then, may approach the DoT again? Some transparency, please.
