Bharti, Alcatel in $500 mn deal for network mgt

Telecom major Bharti Airtel today signed a five-year managed services deal valued at $500 million with Alcatel Lucent for its fixed-line and broadband operations. The services would be managed by a joint venture in which Alcatel Lucent would hold 74 per cent, while the remaining 26 per cent would be held by Airtel, Bharti Airtel Chief Executive Officer Manoj Kohli said.
The JV would be run by Alcatel Lucent with 4,000 employees, some of whom would come from the network management firm. "The JV will manage Airtel's fixedline and broadband services," Kohli said. Bharti has already outsourced its network management to Nokia Siemens and Ericsson in two different deals for its wireless business while its IT infrastructure is managed by IBM.

Source: Business Standard

Bharti likely to sell stake in asset management JV with AXA

Bharti plans to rework its relationship with AXA, reports CNBC-TV18, quoting sources. It is looking to exit its asset management joint venture with AXA and might dilute its stake or exit if necessary. Commenting on the same, Bharti said reworking in relationship will not impact insurance business with AXA. Bharti has 26% stake in Asset Management JV with AXA. This is the one of the first steps of Bharti to rework its relationship with AXA, Bharti has categorically come out and said that it is looking at diluting its stake or even exiting Asset Management business in which Bharti holds 26% stake and remaining 74% stake is held by AXA. In other ventures where these two have a relationship is the life insurance business, where Bharti holds a 74% stake and AXA holds a 26% stake by virtue of being regulated. As of now Bharti has very categorically said that they haven’t changed anything in their insurance business but have gone ahead and seen the asset management business in which they are willing to dilute or even exit the business at this point of time.

Temasek to buy 5% in Bharti Airtel

Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government's investment arm, is acquiring 4.99% stake in Bharti Airtel, India's largest cellular telephony operator.

Singapore Telecom is already a large shareholder in the company.

"Bharti Enterprises continues to maintain a controlling interest of over
45% in Bharti Airtel through its subsidiary Bharti Telecom," said a statement issued by Bharti.

One of Bharti's group companies has decided to grant an option to acquire an indirect stake in Bharti Airtel to a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek. The option arrangement envisages acquisition of shares which, on exercise, will result in a 4.99% stake in Bharti Airtel.

(Source: Business Standard )

Bharti in global telecom top 10 list.

Bharti joins the top 10 gloabl list of telecom operators with a subscriber base of over 40m in India. It is expected to touch 130 million by 2010 as growth remain unabated in the fastest growing telecom market.

Others in top 10: China (China Mobile, China Unicom) USA(Cingular, Verizon, Sprint) Japan (NTT DoCoMo)