Unitech says close to telecom unit stake sale

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Real estate developer Unitech Ltd is in talks with foreign operators to sell 26-45 percent stake in its nascent telecoms unit, and expects to make an announcement next week, a top official said on Friday.

"We are confident that we will be able to shortly close the transaction," Managing Director Sanjay Chandra he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.

He declined to identify the likely partner, how much it hoped to raise from the sale or confirm market talk that Norwegian telecom group Telenor was a suitor.

Financial market sources had told Reuters earlier that Telenor was in talks to buy a stake, while an industry source had said Unitech aimed to raise $1.5-$2 billion from the sale.

Telenor, which has operations in Pakistan and Bangladesh, has said it is open to the idea of operating in India, the world's fastest growing telecoms market for wireless services.

Unitech, India's second-largest listed real estate firm, has licences to offer telecoms services across all 22 service areas and has radio spectrum in 12 of them.

The firm has invested 20 billion rupees ($400 million) into the telecoms venture, Chandra said, and expects to start operations by mid-2009.

Indian telecoms firms have been adding 8-9 million mobile subscribers each month. At the end of August, India had more than 300 million wireless users, the most after China.

Shares in Unitech were down nearly 26 percent at 45.80 rupees by 0833 GMT in a Mumbai market that was down 8.78 percent.