India’s leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel has completed its acquisition of Augere Wireless Broadband India. With this acquisition, Airtel takes over the Augere Wireless one slot of 20 Mhz of spectrum in the 2,300 Mhz band in Madhya Pradesh telecom circle ramping up its high-speed 4G LTE service. With this acquisition, the operator now has 20 Mhz spectrum in 2300 Mhz band across seventeen of its telecom circles.
According to a BSE filing from Airtel “…the merger of Augere Wireless Broadband India Private Limited (Augere), a wholly-owned subsidiary into Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel) has been completed,”.
Augere Wireless is owned by France Telecom and a clutch of private equity funds. The company had won one slot of 20MHz of 4G spectrum in the 2,300MHz band in Madhya Pradesh telecom circle for Rs 122.46 crore way back in 2010 spectrum auction. Initially, the company planned to roll out its 4G broadband service in 2011. But it never happened due to uncertain regulatory conditions.
On 26th August 2016, Airtel signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100 per cent equity stake in Augere Wireless. The deal value was not disclosed, but according to various media reports, it been valued to be around Rs 150 crores.
Airtel during the 2010 spectrum auction acquired 4G spectrum in four service areas for Rs 3,314.36 crore. Later it acquired Qualcomm’s India unit which had spectrum in four more telecom circles. Lastly, Airtel acquired rights to use the 4G spectrum of Aircel in eight telecom circles in a Rs 3,500 crore deal.