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Sterling plans second round of divestment in DishnetDSL

Kohinoor Mandal

CALCUTTA, Dec. 2

DISHNETDSL Ltd, Internet services provider (ISP) of the Sterling group, has appointed Morgan Stanley as the lead manager for the second round of divestment by the promoter.

After the first instalment of divestment early this year, Mr C Sivashankaran of Sterling group now holds around 82 per cent through different holding companies. The rest is held by four foreign outfits. They are Citibank, HSBC and the US-based Century Te l and Covade. While the first is a telecom company the second is an ISP. According to company sources, foreign investments are around $70 million.

Mr V Srinivasan, senior V-P (finance), said that the company was last valued at $345 million in February this year. ``Morgan Stanley has once again initiated the process of evaluation and it would take some time, may be another two to three months'', he told Business Line from Chennai.

It is yet to decide on the quantum of divestment. ``It would depend totally on buyers who would be interested in taking up a stake and our lead manager Morgan Stanley. We are not going to take any decision on it'', Mr Srinivasan said.

Meanwhile, DishnetDSL on Friday launched its dial-up Internet access services in the city, which is the 36th in its country network. Dr Erich Buerkler, CEO, said the services would be extended to some nearby towns and also to Bihar and Orissa.

It has also opened seven Dishnet Hubs to facilitate browsing for the individuals. Each of these hubs will have 40 personal computers. Mr Charles Chacko, V-P (hub operations), said the seven centres were owned by DishnetDSL. ``However, we are open to fran chisee arrangements for new centres'', he said.

At present, DishnetDSL has around 2.30 lakh subscribers, out of which about 1.80 lakh are active. The company was incorporated in March 1998 and it began operations from Pune as a national ISP holding a category A license. It offers three types of servic es, broadband, dial-up and browsing centres.

``We are very aggressive while pricing our packages. The value has to be communicated to the consumers. Moreover, we have an aggressive bandwidth strategy too'', Dr Buerkler said.