Bharti Airtel completes acquisition of Tikona Digital

KOLKATA: Bharti Airtel has informed the telecom department that it has fully acquired Tikona Digital Networks’ share capital, and that the latter is now a wholly-owned arm of the Sunil Mittal-led telco.

“We have initiated the process of merging Tikona Digital (the transferor company) with Bharti Airtel (the transferee company), as per the applicable law,” Bharti Airtel’s chief regulatory officer, Ravi Gandhi, said in a letter to the department of telecommunications ( DoT), dated August 31. ET has seen a copy of the letter.

Gandhi said a copy of the Airtel-Tikona merger document “would be submitted to DoT pursuant to filing of the same before the appropriate authority”, in this case the National Company Law Tribunal ( NCLT).

Bharti Airtel will eventually seek DoT clearance after NCLT approves its merger with Tikona Digital, a person aware of the matter told ET.

In March, Bharti Airtel had announced plans to buy Tikona Digital's 4G airwaves for Rs 1,600 crore, in its bid to boost its high-speed broadband spectrum holdings for taking on Reliance Jio Infocomm and the Vodafone-Idea Cellular combine in a fiercely competitive market that is in the midst of consolidation.

Acquisition of Tikona gives Bharti Airtel access to the former’s 4G spectrum in five circles-—Gujarat, UP (East), UP (West), Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.