Sistema sells off stake in RCom

This article was authored by Dylan Bushell-Embling, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net

Russia’s Sistema has sold its entire stake in Indian operator Reliance Communications (RCom) and has reportedly abandoned plans to buy the operator’s remaining telecoms assets.

Sistema has sold its 10% stake in RCom in multiple tranches starting in March, and has now completed the sell-off process, the Economic Times reported.

Sistema acquired the stake in RCom in return for the sale of its Indian mobile joint venture Sistema Shyam Teleservices in October last year.

But the operator decided to sell down the stake after RCom found itself embroiled in insolvency proceedings.

Sistema had been considering buying the remaining telecom assets left over after RCom sold its wireless business to Reliance Jio Infocomm, which include subsea cables, data centers and fiber assets. But according to the report, Sistema is no longer interested in investing in the Indian market after having already lost $4 billion on investments in the nation.

According to the sources, Sistema had only been interested in acquiring RCom’s domestic enterprise business and around nine data centers worth around $600 million.

But RCom has ruled out a selective sale of its telecoms assets, requiring Sistema to also acquire its GCX subsea cable division. Sistema backed out, reasoning that the cables had a limited remaining shelf life.

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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Other Posts · Undersea cables