Idea ownership issue to be resolved by month-end

The clarity with regard to the ownership of Idea Cellular - the three-way joint venture between Tata, Birla and US-based AT&T - will emerge by the end of this month, according to Kishor A Chaukar, managing director of Tata Industries Ltd and a member of the Group Corporate Centre, which is engaged in strategy formulation at the House of Tata.

Chaukar said that a meeting of the representatives of the three partners in Idea Cellular was scheduled to take place next week where the ownership was likely to be discussed.

"Nothing has happened to change the scenario in the last one year. Now, we will decide which way to go," he said in an interaction with mediapersons here.

Idea Cellular current ownership is split 33.33 per cent each between the Tata group, the AV Birla group and AT&T. However, the ownership issue cropped up following reports that none of its parents wants to run the organisation.

AT&T had been acquired by Cingular Wireless and the new management had expressed its intention to pull out all investments from the global market.

In turn, Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) and Telekom Malaysia (TM) have jointly bid to acquire the AT&T stake.

On the other hand, it has been reported recently that the planned sale to STT and TM has been lapsed due to unmet regulatory approvals. Hence, Cingular is stated to be retaining its indirect stake in Idea, at least for now.

According to Chaukar, Idea Cellular as a company would move forward in terms of investment. But with regard to its ownership "no option is ruled out, including the IPO route."

Replying to a question, he said that there was no conflict of interest between GSM and CDMA cellular operations. The operations of Idea and Tata Tele could be combined at the market place without any difficulty.

However, " such a scenario is highly speculative," he added.

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• Idea is a three-way joint venture between Tatas, Birlas and the US-based AT&T
• Meeting of representatives of the three partners was scheduled to take place next week
• Current ownership is split 33.33 per cent each between the three lIssue cropped up following reports that none of its parents wants to run the organisation