TTSL confirms it has received conditional nod from DoT for merger with Airtel

Tata Teleservices (TTSL) has confirmed that it has received conditional nod from the telecom department for the merger of its mobility business with Bharti Airtel,provided certain conditions are met.
"...DoT has issued conditional approval for the demerger of Company's Consumer Mobile Business into Bharti Airtel Limited. Final approval is issued by DoT when the conditions are met," said the telecom operator in a regulatory filing on Monday.

Last week Bharti Airtel too had issued a similar acknowledgement to the exchanges.

ET had reported in last Friday’s edition that the conditions here are the bank guarantees of about Rs 9000 crore that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked Airtel to provide to get the merger completed .

Airtel and TTSL had announced the deal in September 2017. As per the agreement -Airtel will take in the Tata Group-owned telco’s consumer mobile operations in 19 telecom circles – 17 under TTSL and two under TTML.

For Airtel, the merger will bring in an additional 178.5 MHz of spectrum in three bands that are widely used for 4G, an area in which the Sunil Mittal-led company is expanding to keep pace with Reliance Jio Infocomm. It will add about 18 million of Tata Tele’s mobile subscribers to its over 340 million users, according to regulatory data at the end of January.

The deal will allow the Tata Group to rid itself of the loss-making mobility business, which has been a drag on the group’s finances.