Monday, July 09, 2007

Not so soon, Mr.Sarin...

No matter how hard CNBC anchors may try to glorify businessmen, big business everywhere has its murky side. Arun Sarin of Vodafone had this rant at a Global IIT conference in San Francisco. Sarin while calling for more transparency in acquisitions was referring to some of his rival bidders - in $ 11 bn HutchEssar deal which vodafone had won - aiming to scuttle the deal using their political clout.

In May, Vodafone completed the acquisition of controlling stake in India’s Hutch-Essar from Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom International Ltd (HTIL). Indian regulations impose a cap of 74% for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Telecom sector. There’s some confusion on the `Indianness' of a 15% slice held by HTIL’s partners and if upheld, would add up the foreign holding for Vodafone and Essar to 89 per cent – that is, violating the FDI cap.
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So get less vocal, Mr.Sarin….you aren’t completely out of the woods as yet...rivals could still be out there…

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