HFCL laps up Page Point for free

NEW DELHI: HFCL has acquired Page Point, a Motorola-owned paging company,

literally free of cost. "All the shares of Page Point were transferred to

HFCL for a token value of Rs 10," said HFCL Group chairman Mahendra Nahata

describing the deal as a "bonanza". Page Point, which has seen an

investment of Rs 126 crore, registered a profit of Rs 7 crore for the fiscal

ended June 2000. The company has cash reserves of Rs 30 crore.

With the acquisition, HFCL emerges as the largest paging operator with a

presence in Delhi, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Hyderabad,

Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. Microwave Communications, the paging

service arm of HFCL providing service under the brand name Page Link in seven

cities, will now extend its reach to Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune with

the Page Point acquisition. The combined subscriber base of the two companies

will be two lakh, with Page Point bringing in close to 90,000 subscribers.

Microwave Communications Managing Director Deepak Malhotra said, "Not only

has this acquisition doubled our subscriber base but will also help in

reiterating the company’s on-going commitment to the paging industry in

India."

Refuting the argument that paging companies were looking to exit from the

business, Nahata said the paging industry will see a phase of consolidation. The

acquisition was necessary for the company to reach a critical mass for the

service to become viable. He said the company was all set to provide WAP-enabled

e-mails through pagers. As soon as the networks become compatible with WAP,

Microwave will also provide WAP-enabled pagers to access mails.