NTT DoCoMo Completes 26% Stake Buy in Tata Teleservices; GSM Launch Soon

Japanese telco NTT DoCoMo‘s 26% stake acquisition in Tata Teleservices, announced in November and approved recently, has been completed. DoCoMo will place its three nominees on the board of the domestic telecom services company. Last month, the Indian government had given DoCoMo the go-ahead to buy 27.31% stake in TTSL for Rs 12,924 crores.

The CDMA behemoth will work closely with Tata Tele‘s management and provide the know-how to help the company develop its mobile business – especially in developing and delivering VAS, according to the company. DoCoMo has been known to giving content providers a revenue share of over 85 percent, and essentially make money from data transfer revenues – much like an ISP. We wonder if the norm of telecom operators keeping 65-80% revenue share in India will now be challenged, or whether DoCoMo will be content with the status quo.

DoCoMo now holds 26% stake in the Indian CDMA operator alongside other Tata Group companies such as Tata Sons (40%), NRI entrepreneur C Sivasankaran (8%) and Singapore Government’s investment arm Temasek (9.9%), according to Business Standard.

The stake acquisition in TTSL consisted of 20 per cent new shares and 6 per cent was purchased from shareholders. On Wednesday, Tata Communications sold a 1% stake in TTSL for Rs 424 crore and Tata Power has also sold a part of its holdings in TTSL for Rs 317 crore, BS reports.

TTML: DoCoMo To Take 12% Stake; Ratan Tata No Longer TTML Director

DoCoMo‘s plans to take 20% stake in Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Limited (TTML) through an open offer seems to have been revised to 12%, the release says. The 12% stake will be worth Rs 570 crore, BS reports. In February, the government had approved DoCoMo’s acquisition of 20.25% equity in TTML for Rs 949.07 crores, after SEBI instructed the buyer to increase its offer price.

Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd has informed the BSE that R N Tata shall cease to be Chairman and Director and Kishor A Chaukar, Managing Director of Tata Industries Ltd, has been appointed Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors in his stead effective from March 24, 2009. Another director, A R Gandhi, has exited and Amal Ganguli has been brought in as an independent director. Other directors on TTML’s board are Anil Sardana, S Ramadorai, Mukund Govind Rajan, Nadir Godrej, Ashok Jhunjhunwala and N S Ramachandran.

Tata’s GSM Foray

After eight years of launching its CDMA service, Tata Tele can now focus on rolling out its GSM services. It has received spectrum under a dual-technology clause and now that DoCoMo will guide its CDMA business, the telco can plunge into the GSM arena. We are looking forward to hearing more about the launch, and are wondering if the Tata’s will let DoCoMo handle the CDMA piece, and focus on GSM in the future.

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