Saturday, Dec 20, 2003
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By Our Special Correspondent
The RPG group was holding 79.24 per cent stake in RCSL. The Sterling group, it may be recalled, had acquired the 20.76 per cent stake of Vodafone in RSCL in a deal inked overseas a few months ago. With the acquisition of RPG group's holding in RSCL, the Sterling Infotech group has now become the 100 per cent owner of RCSL. Sources said the Sterling Infotech group had paid a consideration of around Rs.209 crores to buy out the Goenkas. The Vodaone stake acquisition reportedly cost the Sterling Infotech group around $ 8 million. The Sterling Infotech group, it is gleaned, has shelled out close to Rs. 250 crores to acquire RCSL. Sources said it was an all cash deal with the RPG group. In the wake of the deal, the board of RCSL has been reconstituted with a three-member Sterling Infotech team. The current Managing Director of Aircel K. V. P. Bhakar will hold the fort at RCSL simultaneously until a new arrangement is worked out. The acquisition of RSCL should help the group, which provides mobile service in Tamil Nadu Circle (other than Chennai), to come out with a rationalised uniform sort of tariff structure for the entire State, brining lots of benefits to consumers and stakeholders alike. ``We will now work on all these,'' said V. Srinivasan, CEO of the Sterling Infotech Group. RCSL is the second largest cellular service provider in Chennai and has currently a subscriber base of 2.10 lakhs and a market share of 30 per cent. Under the sale agreement, all assets, customers and employees of RCSL will stand transferred to the Sterling group. Sanjiv Goenka, Vice-Chairman, RPG Enterprises, in a press release, said, "the divestment decision is in line with our current efforts to consolidate the group and focus on our core sectors - power and transmission, tyre and related raw materials and retail — and divest from non-core areas.'' The release also quoted Mr. Sivasankaran, Chairman of the Sterling Group, as saying, "This acquisition will make us the leading mobile services provider in the states of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. The Sterling group has always been committed to constantly exceed customer expectations and we believe that this acquisition will provide us an opportunity to establish our leadership position in the Chennai metro area.'' KPMG Corporate Finance advised the RPG group on the sale.
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