Nivedita Mookerji

New Delhi: Is a decision on the MTN-Bharti deal expected by May 22?

Perhaps, if the rescheduling of the annual report of South African telecom group, MTN, is anything to go by.

Last week, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company announced it will issue its annual report on May 12.

But now it has put up a notice on its website saying the report would be mailed to shareholders on May 22.

The company also says the dates are subject to change.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that another round of talks between top executives of Bharti and MTN are slated for Wednesday.

Key members of the Najeeb Mikati family, who hold 9.8% stake in MTN, and top representatives of Standard Charterd (merchant banker advising Bharti) are also expected to be there, along with Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal.

The buzz is that the venue could be London again.

Mittal and his core team had just flown back to India last weekend after two rounds of parleys in London with MTN.

This time, before leaving, Mittal is learnt to have held meetings with some government representatives in New Delhi on the regulatory issues linked to the proposed transaction.

Sources said that among the matters discussed were regulatory hurdles in the listing of Indian shares abroad.

These developments could not be independently confirmed with Bharti.

The refrain on the street now is that Bharti wants to buy a controlling stake in MTN, a merger of the two entities is also being spoken about.

Meanwhile, in its third statement since the deal talk had started some two weeks ago, Bharti on Tuesday said, “The discussions being held are aimed at combining the strengths of the two leading ‘emerging markets’ players and accordingly veering towards possible structures to achieve this objective”.

Bharti has, however, cautiously added in its statement that it wants to reiterate that these “discussions are still exploratory in nature and may or may not lead to any transactions”.

Bharti has also clarified that it has not made any bid, nor is there any requirement to make a bid.

Source : DNA