Open offer for Spice Comm to begin on Aug 22

New Delhi, Jun 30: Idea Cellular Ltd along with Malaysia's TM International will launch an open offer on August 22 to buy up to 20 per cent stake in Spice Communications, their investment banker said on Monday, June 30. The offer, to buy up to 138 million shares at Rs 77.3 each for a total of nearly 250 million dollars, will close on September 11, a company statement said.

The mandatory offer follows a three-way deal struck last week to acquire Spice by Idea Cellular, country's fifth-largest mobile operator. Under the deal, TM International's, a unit of Telekom Malaysia , 39.2 per cent stake in Spice will be converted into Idea shares. TM will also pay for a preferential allotment that will give it around a fifth of Idea.

Idea had last week said it would buy Spice Group's 40.8 per cent stake in Spice Communications, and merge Spice with itself through a share swap. Spice shareholders would get 49 Idea shares for every 100 Spice shares held.

UNI