Global operator strategies - 14/7/5

Four investors are infusing some $300m in total in Aircel (India). AMP, IL&FS, Clarity Partners, and Pequot Ventures have gained a 30% equity stake in the company.

Sprint is buying Unwired Inc. for $1.3 bn. Unwired is a Sprint affiliate, which launched a court case attempting to block Sprint's acquisition of Nextel. With this move, Sprint clear an important hurdle in its proposed acquisition of Nextel.

MobilCom and freenet.de (both in Germany) have agreed on merger. The combination of a mobile operator and an ISP is believed to be well-placed to compete against dominant player Deutsche Telekom, which did a similar move some months ago, as well as FT, TI and Telefonica.

OTE (Greece) has bought a 70% stake in CosmoRom (Romania) from RomTelecom.

AllTel and Western Wireless merger has been cleared by the FCC. But AllTel will have to sell some assets in three States.

Orascom and Wind should be merged in 12 to 18 months. Orascom also revealed it was also looking at new investments in France, Spain and Greece.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Providence Equity have each submitted a bid (worth about €7bn) to purchase Auna (Spain).

Alfa Group (Russia) is focusing again, through its affiliate Eco Telecom, on the issue of Vimpelcom buying Ukraine' s WellCom, one subject of recent clash between Alfa and Telenor. Eco Telecom calls an Aug 15 EGM to decide the case.