Idea Cellular slumps on 'clarification'

Idea Cellular is amongst the top five losers on the bourses, down over 3.5% at Rs.97. Though it has recovered a bit from there, it remains firmly in the red, down over 2.5% at Rs.98 levels.

The rumour mills were churning overtime yesterday; news was in the air that Idea Cellular is holding exploratory talks for merging with Vodafone. And yesterday, after market hours the company clarified, strongly denying these rumours.

This deal was as such not expected to go through as it would have automatically raised hackles of the regulatory authorities – a merger would have meant that it would have created a monopolistic entity, breaching the 50% revenue market share limit in many regions. But now the talk is that we could probably hear of some other form of merger, something more like a spectrum sharing deal.