NTT DoCoMo will pay $2.7 billion for a 26 per cent stake in Indian Telecom Tata Teleservices, giving Japan’s top mobile operator a foothold in the world’s fastest-growing major mobile market.
DoCoMo’s deal with Tata Teleservices follows a $350 million investment in Bangladesh’s No.3 cellphone carrier, as it speeds up its expansion beyond a mature home market, and adds to the record $63 billion of overseas acquisitions by Japanese firms this year.
But as DoCoMo expands, salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group — the parent of unlisted Tata Teleservices and the flagbearer for corporate India’s recent overseas expansion — has put its plans for acquisitions on hold due to the global credit crisis. DoCoMo will also make an open joint tender offer with Tata Sons, the holding firm of the group, to buy up to 20 per cent in a listed unit of India’s No. 6 mobile operator, as required by Indian law.
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