Welcome Guest Login | Register | Site Map | | Make TelecomTiger my homepage     
Telecom News
Enterprise |  Policy & Regulation |  Mobiles & Tabs |  Corporate |  VAS |  People Movement  |  Technology  |  LTE
Corporate
HFCL Infotel to merge with Datacom
P Balakrishna |  New Delhi |  15 Jan 2008

HFCL Infotel will soon be merged with Datacom, the new company promoted by HFCL promoter Mahendra Nahata. Later Nahata introduced Videocon group as majority partner in the company.

 

The two companies are currently working on finalising merger of HFCL Infotel with Videocon. HFCL Infotel is a listed company and its share has been falling ever since the news appeared that the company has failed to get pan-India licence for GSM services. Its share closed at Rs 44.30 on Monday, a 5 per cent down from the earlier close of Rs 46.60.

 

It is not yet clear what will be the exact valuation of HFCL Infotel.

 

Datacom is top in the priority list of getting a licence for GSM services. On Monday, the union communications minister A Raja re-confirmed DoT’s decision to implement the first-come-first serve policy, ie, the company which was first to submit the licence fee will be considered first for allocation of spectrum.

 

Swan was the first in the que and Datacom followed it. However, Swan submitted licence fee for only two circles. Datacom became the first company to offer licence fee for all the 22 circles.

 

HFCL Infotel operates services in Punjab. It launched its services in October 2000 and has been able to give tough fight to the telecom biggies like Reliance and Airtel. As per TRAI, HFCL had a subscriber base of over 2.56 lakh CDMA-based wireless subscribers and 1.56 lakh wireline subscribers as of November, 2007.

 

If the company is merged with Datacom, it will be able to compete with other big players on equal terms.

 

Earlier, the DoT had rejected HFCL Infotel’s application for unified access service licence (UASL) on the grounds that it does not meet networth criteria.

 

Under the UASL regime, every circle requires a specific net worth to be held by the applicant or parent company. The net worth is cumulatively calculated as pre-qualifying criteria before issuing LoIs, which leads to license fee payments and finally, the grant of a UAS licence. For pan-India licence a company should have a networth of Rs 1,350 crore.

 

IDBI owns more than 10% stake in HFCL Infotel. DoT argued that IDBI’s networth cannot be considered while calculating HFCL’s networth as IDBI is a bank.

    
 mail this article    print this article    Show and Post comment
15 Jan 2008(IST)  
Comment
Any comments on this news please?
Posted By :- Sreeni
Comment
Good for HFCL Infotel and its subscribers
Posted By :- P Ramesh
Comment
I THINK WE CAN'T MAKE ANY COMMENT,NO TRUTH IN THIS STORY.THIS WEBSITE GIVES ONLY FALSE NEWS
Posted By :- RAJESH
Comment
Do you mean this site gives fake data and panics the investor?
Posted By :- Sreeni
Comment
All our news items are well researched. This is the difference between us and others. You can check our records. We were first to tell you that HFCL Infotel application has been rejected. We were first to tell you that Datacom is a Nahata company. We were first to tell you that Videocon has acquired stake in Datacom. Now we are first to tell you that Datcom has not taken LOI for Punjab. This information can be verified from DoT. We are first to tell you that Nahata plans to merge HFCL Infotel with Datacom. We will continue providing you the most authentic information. Regards Editor
Posted By :- Editor
Comment
Thank you for the clarification sir!
Posted By :- Sreeni
Comment
is there any good for HFCL from this merger ???
Posted By :- Pradeep
Comment
Dear Editor, All the HFCL investors shall be highly obliged if you can access the latest dvelopments reg the HFCL Infotel merger with datacom... The same can be posted on the moneycontrolboard of HFCL, a CNBC TV18 site or my email Thanks & Rgds
Posted By :- Uday Raj
Comment
Will it be benefical for HFCL employees or for employees working as offroll to HFCL, if merging is being done??
Posted By :- psingh
Whitepaper
Maintain Business Continuity with Cisco ASR 9000 nV Technology
It is a virtual chassis solution where a pair of ASR 9000 routers acts as a single device by maintaining a single contr...read more
Simplify Your Network with Cisco ASR 9000 nV Technology
With the new Cisco Network Virtualization (nV) technology in the Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers, se...read more
Cisco Small Cell Solution: Reduce Costs, Improve Coverage
It is designed to address the challenge of mobile service coverage and to expand network capacity...read more