Piramal Healthcare firm has decided to buy an additional 5.5% stake in Vodafone India whose cost will be Rs3,007 crore.
Piramal firm already bought 5.5% stake of Vodafone for Rs2,900 crore in August last year and its further plan to buy will values Vodafone’s India business at Rs54,675 crore.
However these days, Vodafone has several beneficial facts in which one is its rejoice moment is of won the long-drawn out tax war for Rs11,000 crore against the I-T department.
Piramal Healthcare has values at Rs10,000 crore and its plan to buy Vodafone’s stake would offers various exit mechanisms for Piramal, including through participation in a potential IPO and sale of stake to Vodafone.
Kunal Bajaj, partner and director of a telecom consultancy said, “The Vodafone IPO is revolving around Piramal’s equity stakeholding, hence they agreed to pick up a stake as a pre-IPO partner.”
It is expected that by this agreement, Piramal can liquidate its stake in the IPO that provide a quick return on investment. If it gets a good valuation, then this would also provide the healthcare major with an exit strategy.
In the form of joint venture, a strategic partner being replaced by a non-strategic partner and by purchasing stake of Vodafone, Piramal may be enhance its long term interest in the telecom industry and become another telecom player.
By this agreement, the Essar group, having 33% share in joint venture with Vodafone, as a shareholder has left out by Vodafone as Vodafone had already get back its 22% stake and now the remainder has been acquired by Piramal.
