Mumbai : The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Thursday approved the merger of Idea Cellular and Vodafone, according to sources. The merged entity may start trading as a listed entity if it receives NCLT order on Thursday, the sources said, adding both the companies would exercise joint control and equal voting rights.
Kumar Mangalam Birla is appointed as the non-executive chairman of the new entity. Earlier, both the companies have appointed chief operating officer of Vodafone Balesh Sharma as the CEO ‘Vodafone Idea’, while Akshaya Moondra, chief financial officer of Idea, will get the same position in the merged entity. It also appointed Idea deputy MD Ambrish Jain as the new chief operating officer (COO).
Last month, Idea and Vodafone made a joint payment of Rs 7,248.78 crore under protest to the Department of Telecom (DoT) for merging their mobile business after it did not pay any heed to telecom companies’ requests to re-consider the dues amount.
The combined operations of Idea and Vodafone will create the country’s largest telecom operator worth over $23 billion (or over Rs 1.5 lakh crore), with a 35 per cent market share and a subscriber base of around 430 million.
