Telecom operator Uninor, a joint venture of Norwegian firm Telenor and the Unitech Group, Tuesday said it is in talks with business competitors to rehabilitate its employees, who would be retrenched following its decision to scale down operations in four of its 13 circles.
“We have contacted the human resource departments of our competitors. They have expressed a lot of interest,” Uninor managing director Sigve Brekke said here.
The company, which has about 17,500 employees across the country, has already decided to scale down operations in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Orissa and simultaneously strengthen in its the best performing circles like Uttar Pradesh-East, Uttar Pradesh-West, Bihar and Jharkhand, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh to give a boost to its finances and operations in preparation for the coming auction of 2G spectrum.
The firm has a total of about 2,000 direct and indirect employees in the four circles.
“We want the reduction in business to be done in a very transparent way,” Breek added.
Meanwhile, Â Telenor, the Lion Investor in Uninor, Â earned a brownie point against estranged partner Unitech when the Delhi High Court lifted the stay granted last week by the Company Law Board (CLB) on the proposed sale of assets by their joint venture, Uninor.
The high court also asked the CLB to dispose of the stake sale case in a time-bound manner, and decide Uninor’s petition on merit.
This means Uninor can now proceed with its auction. The high court has, in fact, allowed Uninor to accept expressions of interest (EoIs) till August 8.
Uninor last week announced its decision to auction off all its telecom assets in India before September 7, the day all its licences would stand revoked, as per a Supreme Court order. The telco said it would invite bids till August 6, and then sell the business to the highest bidder. This would enable it to get some capital gains on its investment in India, enabling it to pay off its creditors.
Within hours of that announcement, Telenor, which holds a majority 67.25% stake in the joint venture, said it was willing to offer Rs4,190 crore to buy out Uninor’s assets, if there was no other bidder.This was against Uninor’s minimum bid price of Rs 4,000 crore for the India telecom business.
Telenor, which has invested around Rs 14,000 crore in India, has been locked in a bitter battle with Unitech over valuation of its assets since the cancellation of licences on February 2.
It had planned to part ways with Unitech and find a new partner, along with whom it could bid in the upcoming 2G auction, win back its licenses and start afresh under a new name.
Uninor on Tuesday said it was looking at a boardroom solution to resolve the matter along with the legal battle.There are two ongoing processes. One is legal… and another one is the discussion we are having in the boardroom. We are trying to find a solution,†Uninor Managing Director Sigve Brekke told reporters when asked how the separation would take place without mutual consensus on valuations. “We are having constructive dialogue in the boardroom,†he added.
However, Unitech, which holds 32.75% stake in Uninor, on Thursday appealed to the CLB against the move, calling it ‘illegal’. On Friday, CLB granted a stay, disallowing Uninor from proceeding with the sale till it heard the matter on August 8.
On Monday, Uninor said it had filed an appeal against the CLB stay in the Delhi High Court, requesting an urgent hearing. “This has been granted by the Court and hearing on the matter has been scheduled for today itself,†it said in a statement.
By evening, however, Uninor was out with another statement, saying the high court had ruled in its favour.
A Uninor spokesperson said the company is evaluating the order and will most probably finalise the auction dates by Tuesday.
A Unitech spokesperson was not available for comment.