Indian operator Reliance Communications and Russian investment group Sistema are holding “exclusive discussions” over a possible merger of their Indian operations.
Sistema’s SSTL unit, which operates as MTS India, has 8.9 million connections – making it substantially smaller than RCom, which has 109.5 million.
According to Sistema, the discussion is currently “indicative and non-binding in nature”, meaning that a deal is far from certain.
If an agreement is reached however, the deal will consist of a stock swap. Reports have suggested that SSTL would take a small holding – less than 10% - in the merged unit unless it decides to invest more for a larger share.
