The Indian government's Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) had approved Telenor's proposal to increase its stake in Uninor to 100% from the existing 74% stake. The telco had received an approval for a foreign direct investment (FDI) of Rs 780.86 crore for this purpose earlier in the month (We missed it then). Telenor had earlier sought for FIPB approval to buy out its minority stakeholders in Uninor in June this year. The telco had stated plans of investing Rs 780 crore to acquire the 26% stake owned by its Indian partner Lakshdeep Investments & Finance Pvt. Ltd in the joint venture Telewings which provides telecom services in the country under the Uninor brand. Note that Telenor had previously partnered Lakshdeep Investments & Finance to create a new joint venture Telewings Communications in October 2012. This was after a bitter battle with previous Indian partner Unitech (A Telenor vs Unitech timeline here). Following this, the telco had closed down operations in seven of thirteen operational telecom circles in 2012 and in Q1 2013, including the sudden shutdown of operations in the Mumbai circle. Telenor had later raised its stake in Telewings to 74% in December last year, after receiving the FIPB approval to increase its stake. It had stated plans of investing up to Rs 1,000 crore in the joint venture in June 2013. In January this year, Telenor had mentioned that Uninor had reached cash flow break even at the end of 2013, on track with the telco’s plans. It had also acquired spectrum in a new circle of Assam and additional spectrum in four of its six existing circles in the 1800 MHz band - UP East,…
