BackSpice plans $100 mn mobile services IPO
Spice plans $100 mn mobile services IPO
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Singapore: Indian conglomerate Spice will list its mobile services unit in May or June this year in Singapore and Bombay in an initial public offering (IPO) worth $100 million, its chief executive said on Monday.
Spice, which owns telecommunications firm Spice Communications and Spice Mobiles, is looking to list its mobile value-added services firm, Cellebrum, on the Bombay and Singapore stock exchanges. It will also list its mobile retail unit, Hot Spot, at year-end.
“At the end of 2008, we will have four listed entities," Bhupendra Kumar Modi, Spice’s chief executive, told Reuters in an interview. He declined to reveal pricing range for the two IPOs.
“Cellebrum has been valued at around $500 million, but we will put it to the market at a lower price to benefit the shareholders," he said.
Spice Communications, which has a stock market value of $748.8 million, competes with the telco giants Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications in India.
Operating in only two out of India’s 23 telecom zones, it also aims to double its subscriber base to at least eight million by 2008.
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