Telenor and Unitech Partnership Uninor combines the forces of Indias second largest real estate company Unitech

Ltd and Norway-based Telenor, the 6th largest mobile communications group in the world. The joint venture combines Unitechs strong presence as a trusted corporation in the Indian market with Telenors successful experience at building and managing best-in-class mobile operations. Telenor owns 67.25% in Unitech Wireless for which it paid Rs 6,135 crore, while Unitech holds the remaining 32.75%. The Telenor Group has proven itself to millions of customers around the world over a long period of time. With over 150 years of telecom experience, the group is now present in 14 countries worldwide with 174 million mobile subscriptions as of Q4 2009 and over 40,000 employees across the globe. A dominant position in markets most similar to India means the group brings existing competencies in distribution, targeted offerings, and customer lifecycle management and organization culture to their operations in India. As Indias second largest diversified real estate major with over 30 years of presence across locations nationwide, the Unitech Group comes into Joint Venture as a partner with decades of consumer facing experience in the Indian market, bringing with it deep insights into business as well as consumer marketing in the diverse Indian market. The Company also features in the National Stock Exchanges bell weather S&P CNX Nifty Index. The unique partnership gives the advantage of the most extensive and the most relevant experience to rollout services in India. The Supreme Court verdict ordering the cancellation of 122 licences for 2G telephony has brought together Unitech Ltd and Telenor. The two companies have put their differences on backburner and are jointly working towards a strategy to come out of their trouble. Telenor says the verdict was unfair. Sigve Brekke, a Telenor nominee in the Unitech Wireless board and its managing director and Sanjay Chandra, Unitechs managing director, will soon meet to discuss the ventures future. The two companies are at loggerheads over a proposed rights issue to raise Rs 8,500 crore. Telenor wants to use it for fund expansion, while cash-short Unitech says it is not in the ventures interest. What is more, if Unitech does not participate in the rights issue and the issue goes through at face value taking the total equity to Rs 8,600 crore, Unitech's stake will fall to about 1.5 per cent. Unitech executives say the rights issue would have been unnecessary had Unitech Wireless not declined a Rs 9,000-crore loan offer from State Bank of India. Telenor says no such loan was available.