Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, who engineered the
acquisition of Hutch-Essar in India, has accused unsuccessful rival bidders of trying to derail the deal and sought transparency from Indian regulators in M&A approvals.
"One day I would hear that some big business house called some minister attempting to crater the deal. The billionaire losers' club was trying to unwind the deal," Sarin, an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus, told a Global IIT conference over the weekend in Silicon Valley.
"I have to tell you, I quite didn't expect that. I didn't expect the good and great of India to be calling Cabinet secretaries, ministers, to say, 'You have to unwind this deal, because
frankly we want a piece of it," he said.
In May, Vodafone completed the acquisition of controlling stake in Hutch-Essar from Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom International Ltd for $10.9 billion.
Reliance Communications, Maxis and Hinduja group were among those in the race to buy Hutch-Essar, but Vodafone clinched the deal in February. However, the UK-based company had to wait three more months for regulatory approvals to complete the purchase.
While calling for more transparency in India's acquisition and merger process, Sarin said: "It took Vodafore three months to get approvals, certainly fast by the US and UK standards.
In the US, it would take six to eight months to get approvals for such a large deal."