Click to play videoNew Delhi: The Government on Friday cleared British telecom firm Vodafone's application for buying a majority stake in India's fourth-largest mobile operator Hutch-Essar Limited (HEL).
Vodafone, the world's largest mobile operator in terms of revenues, had bought a controlling 52 per cent stake in HEL from Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom International at a total enterprise value of over $ 18 billion.
The company's application was cleared by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) at a meeting in the Capital on Friday.
The telecom ministry had given a clean chit to Vodafone on the Hutch-Essar deal earlier this month, saying that no licencing condition was violated by the company.
Vodafone's acquisition of Hutchison Telecom International's (HTIL) stake in Hutch Essar Ltd HEL got into complications when FIPB sought details of the loans extended to Asim Ghosh and Analjit Singh—the shareholders who together have 12 per cent stake in HEL.
The complicated shareholding structure had raised apprehensions that Vodafone has perhaps breached the 74 per cent foreign investment ceiling, prescribed for the telecom sector.
However, both Ghosh and Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin have maintained that despite the loans extended by Hutch, Ghosh and Singh were independent shareholders and voted the way they wanted to.
(With PTI inputs)
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