iWorld
Mergers and acquisition policy being given final touches
NEW DELHI: Though the Department of Telecom (DoT) is expected to drop the three-year mandatory lock-in period for promoters of telecom companies under the new mergers and acquisition rules expected this week, the recent reports of high reserve price for spectrum may prove to be counter-productive.
Initially, the government had introduced the lock-in period to prevent speculative players from misusing the opportunity to sell spectrum at market price after acquiring spectrum from the government under the first-come-first-served policy.
But since fresh spectrum allocation is being done only through auction and older players who had got spectrum under the earlier dispensation have completed more than three years, the government has decided that the lock-in period is not necessary.
The draft of the M&A norms say that “Further lock-in condition may hamper the progress and roll out of capital intensive telecom projects as shareholders may not be able to invest further equity.”
Industry sources feel that some of the players in each circle may want to leave because of poor financial returns and increasing debt.
The proposed M&A policy may not allow such players to leave, and rules are clear on issues such as spectrum trading, and the draft also says the buyer will have to pay the government the market price for any spectrum the seller holds under the older dispensation of first-come-first-served.
While the TRAI had initially proposed a flat fee, the DoT is keen to retain the existing slab system where operators with higher amount of spectrum have to pay a higher revenue share.
iWorld
Prashant Iyer joins Sony LIV as head of marketing
The former Netflix India director grew the streamer’s social following from half a million to 55m
MUMBAI: Sony LIV has poached one of India’s most battle-hardened streaming marketers. Prashant Iyer, who spent nearly eight years at Netflix building its India operation into a social-media juggernaut, has joined the platform as head of marketing.
Iyer leaves Netflix having done rather a lot. He grew the streamer’s India social community from roughly 500,000 followers to over 55m, delivered engagement and organic impressions double those of rivals, and ran more than 250 campaigns across titles, brand and partnerships. In his final role as director, marketing, he sat on the core leadership team credited with driving 15-times revenue and subscription growth over eight years. He also served as the only director-level social leader across Asia-Pacific, a regional mandate that stretched across a 200m-plus follower community.
Before Netflix came Nike, where Iyer spent three and a half years straddling digital brand commerce and key account management, including ownership of Myntra, the brand’s largest digital account in India. Earlier still, Titan Company gave him his first crack at brand and digital marketing.
Sony LIV, which has been muscling for position in an increasingly crowded streaming market, has landed a marketer who knows precisely how to build an audience from scratch and, just as importantly, how to keep it. For a platform still chasing the kind of cultural cachet Netflix India took years to earn, that is not a bad place to start.
