By Sven Grundberg
Telenor ASA (TEL.OS) will be looking at participating in an
upcoming renewed auction for telecommunications bandwidth in India,
the company's chief executive, Jon Fredrik Baksaas, said
Friday.
Speaking at a press conference Friday, Mr. Baksaas said Telenor
will be looking at the upcoming auction in Mumbai, where the
company has operations, but where it has lost its license to
operate after a Supreme Court order earlier this year.
The CEO's comments come after India's federal cabinet Thursday
approved a renewed push to sell telecommunications bandwidth, after
a muted response to an auction held in November left four key zones
unsold.
The four service areas in the Delhi, Mumbai, Karnataka and
Rajasthan didn't receive any bids in the November auctions, with
companies saying the prices were far too high. The upcoming
auction's starting prices have been cut by 30% for the areas, a
federal minister said after a cabinet meeting Thursday.
However, it may take more than a 30% discount for Telenor to
consider participating in the Mumbai auction.
"The 30% discount is a good target, but I think prices will have
to be reduced even further," Mr. Baksaas said.
The chief executive added that Telenor, which has promised to
stay below a targeted 155 billion rupees ($2.85 billion) funding
limit in India, expects more detail about the policy of the
upcoming auction in January next year, after which it will be able
to evaluate a possible participation in further detail.
India's Supreme Court, which said the policy adopted to allot
the licenses in 2008 was illegal, has allowed operators that lost
licenses to continue providing telecom services until Jan. 18.
In November, an Indian unit of Telenor was among five companies
that won telecom bandwidth in the renewed bandwidth auction, paying
INR40.18 billion for spectrum in six of India's 22 telecom service
areas.
Write to Sven Grundberg at sven.grundberg@dowjones.com; Twitter:
@svengrundberg
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