{"id":41663,"date":"2013-07-10T11:35:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T09:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=41663"},"modified":"2013-07-10T14:39:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T12:39:14","slug":"mtn-india-venture-put-on-hold-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/41663\/mtn-india-venture-put-on-hold-report\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN India venture put on hold: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talks between MTN Group<\/a> and India based Reliance Communications<\/a> over a potential merger have been put on hold, according to Bloomberg, citing “three people with knowledge of the situation”.<\/p>\n

The media house notes that MTN has been discouraged by a current revision in India of its telecommunications mergers and acquisitions rules.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Indian commissions approved the proposal to raise the cap on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the telecom sector to 100% from a current high of 74%.<\/p>\n

International operators had been limited to a 49% holding \u2013 rising to a maximum 74% with special regulatory approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg, discussions\u00a0between the two parties centered around MTN taking about a 24% in\u00a0Reliance Communications, with a market value of about $1.2 billion.<\/p>\n

Reliance Communications, which is owned by billionaire\u00a0Anil Ambani<\/a>,\u00a0boasts a customer base of over 130 million, including\u00a07.2 million 3G customers and 29.4 million data customers.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg wrote that investors may be relieved that a deal is now less likely, according to Kate Turner-Smith<\/a>, a Cape Town-based analyst for BPI Capital Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn acquisition of this nature could potentially limit MTN\u2019s growth in other markets,\u201d Turner-Smith said by phone. \u201cEveryone is relatively pleased with the increased dividend yield, and anything that might endanger that would be frowned upon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shares in MTN gained R1.09 to R181.70 in mid morning trade on the JSE on Wednesday (10 July), off only R6.00 from its record high, and giving the group a market cap of R341.95 billion.<\/p>\n

More on MTN<\/h3>\n

MTN courting India acquisition: report<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

India opens up to MTN, global operators<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN misses out on Myanmar licence<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN shares test record highs<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Fitch warns MTN on SA market<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talks between MTN Group and India based Reliance Communications over a potential merger, have been put on hold according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,28,5943],"class_list":["post-41663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-reliance-communications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41663"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41677,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41663\/revisions\/41677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}