New Delhi, June 8
Sunil Bharti Mittal’s aspirations of making the country’s largest telecom operator a truly global operator got a major boost today as Bharti Airtel today acquired Zain Telecom's Africa operations for $ 10.7 billion (approx Rs 48,000 crore).

With this acquisition, Bharti Airtel will become the world's fifth largest mobile operator with 180 million subscribers spread across 18 Asian and African nations.

A beaming Mittal, while making the announcement here, said, "The transaction is the largest ever cross-border deal in an emerging market and will result in combined revenues of about $ 13 billion." Mittal said Airtel would have total control over Zain after the acquisition.

Zain Africa will now be 100 per cent subsidiary of Bharti International, he said, adding that this deal would signal many new investments that go to Africa.

The acquisition of Zain’s Africa assets would also mean a major achievement for Airtel which had to abort its negotiations twice earlier for a merger with South African telecom giant MTN since 2008.

Airtel’s move into Africa will give it a chance to exploit one of the most unexplored markets as of now. With its experience of operating in India, with low tariff plans, Airtel can well take giant strides of expanding in Africa.

Airtel’s acquisition of Zain’s African mobile services operations will cover 15 countries with a total customer base of over 42 million.

Incidentally, over these 15 countries, the total population base cover is of over 450 million with telecom penetration of approximately just about 32 per cent.

The countries in which Airtel has acquired the operations are - Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Zain is the market leader in 10 of the 15 countries and second in four countries.

The company will launch the Airtel brand in Zain's operations in all 15 nations in October this year.

Zain had operations in 17 countries in the region and claimed to be the second largest operator after MTN. Airtel has not acquired Zain’s assets in Sudan and Morocco.

Currently, ChinaMobile is the world's largest mobile player with a subscriber base of 522 million, followed by Vodafone (348 million), Telefonica (206 million) and American Movil (201 million).

Asked whether he regretted missing a deal with MTN twice and whether that was his first choice, Mittal said, "...MTN was the first opportunity that was available at that time. In MTN's case, we would have had board control but no management control and no change in brand.

"There were compromises to be made (in MTN). Zain is the second largest operator and that is the only difference. But we will have full control and our own brand. We are fortunate that we got the second chance (Zain) and got much better deal," Mittal said.

Mumbai, June 8
In the spirit of truce arrived at with his elder brother, Anil Ambani today dropped a Rs 10,000 crore defamation suit against Mukesh Ambani in the Bombay High Court. "Yes, we have withdrawn the suit claiming Rs 10,000 crore as damages", a Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group spokesman told PTI.

The defamation suit was filed by Anil Ambani in September, 2008, shortly after RIL put a spoke in his attempts to acquire South African telecom giant MTN that year.

RIL had sent a legal notice to MTN asserting its right of first refusal on stake in RCom, a move that forced the Anil Ambani group to drop plans for a merger with the South African mobile company.

Incidentally, the defamation suit was dropped within days of RCom deciding to offload 26 per cent stake in a strategic sale.

Anil had dragged his brother to court, alleging that Mukesh had defamed him in an interview to New York Times (dated June 15, 2008) that was reproduced in two leading Indian newspapers. The two newspapers had also been made respondents in the suit.

The Ambani brothers signed a truce agreement late last month, ending a bitter public and legal battle despite arriving at a family settlement to divide the Reliance empire in 2005 based on a formula worked out by mother Kokilaben.

As part of the truce, the two brothers decided to scrap a non-compete agreement between their groups, a move that would give each side flexibility to utilise resources more efficiently and enter businesses hitherto inaccessible.

While RCom has already announced its intention to sell 26 per cent stake, as part of efforts to raise resources, there is speculation that cash-rich RIL could also venture into the telecom arena soon and may partner Venugopal Dhoot-led Videocon's telecom arm.

The defamation case itself was based on an interview given by Mukesh Ambani to the leading American publication wherein the New York Times quoted him as saying that a network of lobbyists and spies were overseen by his brother before they split.

"What most distinguishes Reliance from its rivals is what Ambanis’ friends and associates describe as his “intelligence agency” a network of lobbyists and spies in New Delhi who they say collect data about the vulnerabilities of the powerful, about the minutiae of bureaucrats' schedules, about the activities of their competitors," the New York Times had said.

Mukesh is purported to have said in the interview that all such activities were overseen by his brother before they split, and had since been expunged from his tranche of the company. "We demergered all of that," Mukesh was quoted as saying. — PTI 

New Delhi, June 8
Rana Sugars today said it had appointed consultants for valuation of the company's main businesses — sugar, power and distilleries — and would look at different options, including demerger.

The company's board of directors, at its meeting held on June 5, had approved the appointment of some reputed appraisal agencies to do valuation of these businesses, Chandigarh-based Rana Sugars said.

"On the receipt of valuation report, the board of directors will evaluate different options, including demerger of the sugar, power and distillery business activities of the company," it added.

The company has four manufacturing facilities in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab with a cane crushing capacity of 15,000 tonnes per day. It also has a co-generation capacity of 68 MW.

Rana Sugars has set-up its first alcohol distillery in Punjab. The distillery uses molasses, a by-product of the sugar-manufacturing process. — PTI

San Francisco, June 8
Apple Inc. has unveiled a latest model of the iPhone, thinner in size and which has new features, including a front-facing camera.

Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, provided details on Monday of the new "iPhone 4" at the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference held in San Francisco. "We're going to take the biggest leap since the original iPhone," Jobs was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

Less than 10-mm thick, the iPhone 4 is about 24 per cent thinner than the previous iPhone 3GS, Jobs said, adding that the new model had a longer battery life that would allow 40 per cent more talk time.

The iPhone 4 will go on sale on June 24 in five countries, including the US, France, Germany, Britain and Japan, and will be available in 18 more countries in July.

The 16-gigabyte model will cost $199 in the US and the 32-gigabyte model will cost $299, he said. — IANS

New Delhi, June 8
Gold prices zoomed past all previous records to a new peak of Rs 19,220 per 10 grams in the capital today on frantic buying by stockists after the metal surged to an all-time high in international markets.

Standard gold (99.9 purity) jumped up by Rs 195 to touch a new peak of Rs 19,220 per10 grams, while gold of 99.5 per cent purity was being traded higher by the same margin at a record high of Rs 19,120 per 10 grams. Sovereigns also gained Rs 50 to Rs 14,700 per piece of eight grams.

Reports of a firming global trend came at a time when the metal was going through a bullish patch in domestic markets on hectic buying by jewellers and retail customers for the ongoing marriage season.

The trading sentiment turned extremely strong after gold climbed to record levels in London as investors sought an alternative to currencies and equities as concerns over the deepening Europe debt crisis mounted. Gold in London surpassed all previous records to trade at $1,252.90 an ounce.

The price of gold in dollars strengthened as the euro slipped to its lowest level in more than four years against the US currency, making the metal more costlier when bought in the eurozone.

With prices of the precious metal on a high worldwide, gold in futures trading on the Multi-Commodity Exchange for far-month February delivery climbed 1.22 per cent to Rs 19,222 per 10 grams, a level never seen before.

In line with the general firming trend, silver prices recorded significant gains on increased offtake by industrial units and other consuming sectors like coin and jewellery fabricators.

Silver ready recorded a handsome single day gain of Rs 1,000 to Rs 29,600 per kg and weekly-based delivery spurted by Rs 840 to Rs 29,065 per kg. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Deal for Punj Lloyd
Mumbai: Punj Lloyd on Tuesday said it had received Rs 179.89 crore contract from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology (RGIPT) to construct their technical institute in Uttar Pradesh. The scope of work includes civil and site development, which will be executed over a period of two years, Punj Lloyd said. — PTI

Career Point plans IPO
Mumbai: The Rajasthan-based tutorial service provider Career Point Infosystems plans to raise Rs 115 crore through an IPO to upgrade the infrastructure at the institute. "We are planning to go public to raise Rs 115 crore and the issue is expected in 20 days," Pramod Maheshwari, CMD, said here today. — PTI

Godrej eyes chocolate biz
New Delhi: Godrej is planning to enter into the chocolate business through its joint venture with US-based Hershey, as a part of their strategy to increase the product offering in the domestic market. The joint venture, Godrej Hershey sells food and confectionery items in India. — PTI