UTV Consolidates Motion Pictures Subsidiary UTV's Mauritius-based Motion Pictures subsidiary, which is listed on London's AIM stock exchange, is now being merged with the parent company, it informed the BSE. UTV Software Communications owns 76.82% of UMP and the balance is owned by independent stakeholders, with whom the company plans to undertake a share swap exercise. It will offer 1 equity share for every 3.5 shares held, which will result in a 15.84% dilution in its capital and the promoters' holding will fall from 83.25% to 70.06%. The move is expected to increase operational synergies and shareholder value. Rural Teledensity Four Times Target; BSNL To Implement Last of VPTs In Nov The government announced rural teledensity in India is 16.54% as of May 2009 (as of March 2009, as we reported in our quarterly telecom post, it was 14.8%). It has flown past the targeted teledensity of 4% for 2010, as conceived by the New Telecom Policy of 1999. The village public telephones project under the Bharat Nirman Scheme and supported by the USO fund will begin its final phase in November, covering 35534 villages which do not yet have access to a public telephone facility. In February, it entered into an agreement with BSNL to install the VPTs. BSNL set up 26909 VPTs by May 2009. Our Take: A comparison: Urban teledensity (as of March 2009) was 88.66%. This has mostly to do with private operators and intense competition. Now these private operators are focussing on rural India to drive growth, so we can expect rural…
