Bahrain Telecom buys 49% in Chennai-based S Tel

19 January 2009

Bahrain telecom, Batelco has announced plans for a major expansion of its mobile telephone operations by moving into the developing Indian market.

A consortium led by the Bahrain-based telecommunications giant has agreed to purchase a 49-per cent shareholding in S Tel Limited (S Tel), a recently established Indian mobile operation, for $225 million. Bahrain Telecom has operations in six countries in the Middle East.

Batelco has partnered with Millennium Private Equity (MPE), a Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) regulated entity to form Batelco Millennium India Company (BMICL) to purchase the shares in S Tel.

 S Tel has been promoted by Skycity Foundations and Mauritius-based Telecom Investments. The real identity of the investors of S Tel is not known and the directors of the company, as mentioned on the company website, are S Natarajan, Santhosh Robert and Padmavathy Suresh.

S Tel ready to pay Rs6,000 crore extra for spectrum.

Last month, S Tel had offered to pay a revenue share  of Rs13,752 crore over a period of 10 years, if the government agreed to allot letters of intent for all the 22 circles for which it had sought licences.