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Bharti Telesonic to offload 30 per cent to Telenet for NLD foray

BS ICE Bureau

The Bharti Group has changed the shareholding pattern of its national long-distance venture Bharti Telesonic by offloading 30 per cent equity to its basic services arm Bharti Telenet.

Bharti Telesonic, a 90:10 joint venture between Bharti Televentures and Singapore Telecom, will now have Bharti Televentures holding 60 per cent equity, SingTel 10 per cent and Bharti Telenet 30 per cent.

Rajan Mittal of the Bharti Group confirmed the change in the shareholding pattern.

He said the move was triggered by the Department of Telecom's refusal to give Bharti Telesonic the licence for long-distance operations on grounds that neither Bharti Telesonic nor its majority holding company Bharti Televentures had any experience in the telecom service sector.

"The shareholding pattern has been changed as DoT said it was mandatory for any company foraying into NLD in the form of a joint venture that at least one of the partners, holding a minimum of 30 per cent stake in the venture, must have prior experience in telecom services," Rajan Mittal said.

Bharti Telesonic is in the process of putting up a 35,000-route kilometre optic fibre network across 250 cities. While a 10,000-kilometre stretch has already been laid, the company expects to complete another 15,000 kilometres this year. Bharti will cover 92 cities by July 2001 and 151 cities by December 2001.

Telesonic will also act as a carrier for traffic within India generated by Bharti SingTel's $650-million submarine cable project connecting Madras and Singapore.

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