France Telecom close to buying GTL arm

France Telecom is close to buying the IT business of communication infrastructure provider GTL in the next few days for about $70 million, intended to enter the fast growing Indian telecom space.

Mumbai-based GTL k and Managed Services businesses to concentrate more on its telecom network business, where it will set up 80,000 towers in the next three years with an investment of Rs 2,400 crore (Rs 24 billion).

GTL had been in exclusive talks for at least a month now with the French major and the deal is likely to be signed shortly, a company official told PTI.

Two more international companies had evinced interests to buy out the two IT domains of GTL and the company had the option to negotiate with them as well if the discussion with France Telecom did not go through, the official said.

France Telecom, a source said, is serious about the deal as it would give the company a foothold into the country's fast growing telecom space.

The two businesses contributed close to 20 per cent of GTL's total sales volume of Rs 145.5 crore (Rs 1.45 billion)during July-to-September 2006.

The IT business of GTL offers services like converged enterprise networks, contact centre solutions, disaster recovery, security solutions and professional services.