Tata Group not to exercise government call option; will hike VSNL stake via market purchase

The Tata Group will increase its stake in group company Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) through market acquisitions instead of buying the government’s 26.12% residual stake in VSNL through the exercise of a call option.

The Tata Group has a combined effective shareholding of over 50% in VSNL. The government divested VSNL in 2001, with Tatas acquiring the majority stake in the company. However, the government was holding on to 26.12% stake in the company that gave it a controlling power and two nominees on its board.

Panatone Finvest (a Tata Group entity) holds 40.7% in VSNL, while Tata Sons has 8.51%, Tata Power holds 0.09% and Government of India holds 26.12%. Institutional investors and individuals hold the remaining stake in the company. The government was earlier ready to dispose of the residual stake, but had asked for a golden share in the company. A golden share means that the government would sell its 26.12 per cent stake in the company and in return ask for a single share with controlling stake. This was not acceptable to the Tatas.

Read the Business Standard article.

Tata Group ups stake in TTML by 3.5%

The Tata Group has raised its stake in Tata Teleservices Maharashtra (TTML), its publicly listed telecom company. TTML provides telecommunication services in the states of Goa and Maharashtra. The group’s holding in the company has now gone up from 65.5% to 69%. Tata Sons has picked up the unsubscribed portion of TTML’s recent rights issue, thereby increasing its stake by 11%, from 7.86% equity to 18.68%. Tata Teleservices, the Tata Group’s flagship telecom company and the single largest shareholder in Tata Teleservices Maharashtra did not subscribe to the rights issue. Consequently its holding has now decreased from 46.98% to 39%. The other group companies including Tata Power, Tata Investment Corporation and Panatone Finvest have maintained their equity stake by subscribing to the rights issue.

Of late, the Tata Group has been quite in news for such corporate moves where it has raised stake in some group companies including Tata Tea and Tata Coffee. The total indirect foreign holding in TTML would also go down as Tata Teleservices, the parent company of TTML, has foreign equity holding from Singapore government’s private equity arm Temasek Holdings. The board of TTML had approved a rights issue of the size of Rs. 491.14 crores on January 12, 2007 through an aggregate of 288.91 mn equity shares at a price of Rs. 17 per share. The date of allotment of the share was January 17, 2007.

Read The Economic Times article.