Vodafone seeking 100 percent parent stake in India joint venture: Report

British telecom major Vodafone is planning to buy out stakes held by its Indian partners, including Ajay Piramal-led Piramal Healthcare and Analjit Singh, in Vodafone India to gain complete control of the country's second largest telecom operator.

"Work is going on in this regard (to take parent stake to 100 percent by buying stakes held by Indian partners)," a source familiar with the development told PTI.

No immediate comments were received from the company. Vodafone has raised its stake to 74 percent in Vodafone Essar Ltd (VEL) by buying shares of Essar in the company in 2011. The British major bought Essar's 33 percent stake in VEL for USD 5.46 billion in July, 2011.

After buying Essar's 33 percent, Vodafone's stake in VEL was going above the 74 percent FDI limit permitted at that time. Vodafone transferred 1.35 percent stake to an Indian

investor to remain compliant with the existing sectoral FDI norms.

Piramal Healthcare in August, 2011 bought 5.5 per stake in the Vodafone India for about Rs. 2,900 crore. According to sources, Piramal Healthcare now holds about 11 percent stake in Vodafone India and Max India's founder Analjit Singh owns about 6 percent.

Vodafone has already started the exercise for equity valuation to buy out entire stake of its India partners, sources said.

In April 2013, Piramal Group Chairman Ajay Piramal had said the company had invested in Vodafone with 24-36 month exit plan and would sell the stake either sometime this year or the next.

The government in August approved 100 percent foreign direct investment (FDI) in the telecom sector, meeting a key demand of the fund-starved industry. It was decided to increase FDI cap in telecom to 100 percent from 74 percent.

(Also see: Government approves 100 percent FDI in telecom sector)

Vodafone India had registered 24.5 percent jump in operating profit to Rs. 10,640.6 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2013.'

The revenues of the company jumped 10.2 percent to Rs. 35,885.8 crore for 2012-13 fiscal, as against Rs. 32,564.3

crore in the previous financial year.

The company has invested over Rs. 54,000 crore since 2007 till end of March 2013. Vodafone India had over 15.5 crore mobile customers in the country by end of June 2013.

The British telecom major is facing a tax liability of over Rs 11,200 crore, along with interest, on its 2007 acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa's stake in Hutchison Essar.

Earlier this month, Verizon Communications agreed to pay USD 130 billion to buy Vodafone Group out of its U.S. wireless business.