Hutchison goes on a buying spree

Rahul Gupta

MUMBAI: Hutchinson Max is planning to consolidate all its entities after the merger of all its operations. The company currently operates in 11 circles. Asim Ghosh will be in-charge of the combined entity. The company will buy out the stake of other shareholders in all its entities and brand it as ‘Hutch’.

The company had recently announced to pump-in $360 million in India and a part of it would go in this buy-out. The company is in the process of finalizing the merger plan to make its operations in the country a combined entity, the details of which are likely to be announced next month.

Orange CEO Sandip Das said, "We are currently in the process of taking all our entities under one roof." He denied the various media reports of Hutch coming out with its IPO this year.

Hutch in India is a majority stakeholder in all the circles it is operating. In Delhi, Karnataka, AP and Chennai, it has 49 percent stake. Rest is with Essar holdings. In Gujarat, Hutchinson has 70 percent stake and the rest is with Hindujas and Kotak’s. But it is expected that post merger Hutch will have a 49 percent stake in the merged entity, while the balance 51 percent will be held by other shareholders like Essar, Kotak Mahindra and Hindujas.

The company currently has several complex holdings and cross-holdings. In Mumbai, Hutchison Max operates under brand ‘Orange’ while Hutch’s Gujarat operation is under brand ‘Fascel’. Hutchinson Essar operates in Karnataka, AP, Delhi and Chennai circles under brand name ‘Hutch’. Also in Kolkata Hutchinson Essar (East), it operates under brand ‘Hutch’.

The company has recently bought the three circles of Aircell Digilink that include Haryana, Rajasthan and UP (East). It is also awaiting approval of DoT for Punjab circle that it has recently bought from Escotel.



Currently, Das handles operations of three circles that include Mumbai, Karnataka and Gujarat. The COOs of Karnataka and Gujarat report directly to him.

Similarly, the Delhi circle is being taken care of by CEO, Rajiv Sawhney and other circles are being handled by their respective COOs. Post merger CEOs and COOs of all the circles will report directly to Ghosh, who is currently looking after the entire Hutch operations in India.

(CNS)