Vodafone India And Idea Cellular Merge To Create India's Largest Telecom Entity

The Move Seen as a Response to Oncoming Challenge From Reliance Jio and Will Cause Another Disruption in the Highly Competitive Indian Telecom Market.

The much talked about Vodafone-Idea merger has finally happened. Vodafone Group and Idea Cellular have finalized the agreement to combine their operations in India (excluding Vodafone’s 42% stake in Indus Towers) to create India’s largest telecom operator. The completion would take around two years, by 2018. The merger is seen as a response to coming Reliance Jio’s onslaught.

The combined company would become the leading communications provider in India with almost 400 million customers, 35 percent customer market share and 41percent revenue market share. The total revenue would exceed to over Rs 80,000 crore.

Kumar Mangalam Birla will be the Chairman of this merged entity. Vodafone will have the sole right to appoint the Chief Financial Officer.

Initially, Vodafone will be a dominant partner in the merged entity with 45.1 percent stake after it will transfer a stake of 4.9 percent to the Aditya Birla group for Rs 3,874 crore in cash to complete the merger. Aditya Birla group will then own 26 percent stake in the company but it will have the right to acquire more shares from Vodafone under an agreed mechanism with a view to equalize the shareholding over time.