Antitrust watchdog clears Airtel’s Telenor takeover

Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile provider by subscribers, has been granted another key approval for its acquisition of its smaller, Norwegian-owned rival, Telenor India. The Economic Times writes that antitrust watchdog the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has now greenlit the takeover, following approvals from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) last week. As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, in February this year Telenor and Airtel signed an agreement under which the latter would acquire all of the former’s spectrum, licences and infrastructure, as well as taking on all of Telenor’s employees and its customer base of nearly 55 million users. In addition, all of Telenor’s outstanding spectrum payments and operational contracts would be transferred to Airtel.