After Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel hung up on MTN group, Anil Ambani of RCom is now in the fray to snap up or merge or [????] MTN into itself. However, Ambani has a tough task on hand – Roll out Reliance GSM services in India and also prepare for the 3G auction.
MTN offers good opportunity due to its exposure to strong growth across the African continent. However, a potential deal with MTN likely poses greater risks for Reliance Communication than it could have for Bharti Airtel. RCom’s net debt has been rising since the end of FY2008 and is almost thrice than Bharti Airtel. Adding to RCom’s woos is RCom’s comfort over working in a partnership (with MTN) seems debatable as RCom has hitherto preferred singular control or 100% ownership across its businesses.
Since RCom is an integrated telco, we doubt if Ambani would agree for a merger of MTN-RCom. However, since MTN Group is also looking to BUY more growth, Ambani may sell the Reliance GSM saga in India to MTN. Hopefully, both the companies will connect soon 🙂
the deal between mtn and r com is certainly big news and with the current state of the market i guess it will help the rupee grow stronger. however Mukesh seems to be playing the villain by constantly poking into this deal. at the same time to me it looks like Mukesh who is currently building a billion dollar house is just trying to fund the construction with the mtn deal. if not the second point may be that he is trying to draw attention away from the building process to hide some thing. what ever the case be he certainly is a spoil sport.