Tata Group defers share conversion option in TTSL by a year

The Tata Group has decided to defer the share conversion option in Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) by a year, after the group and its equity partner NTT DOCOMO failed to arrive at a mutually agreeable valuation of TTSL’s shares. The Tata Group is locked in arbitration negotiations with NTT DOCOMO in the London Court of International Arbitration over TTSL’s valuation since January 2015. The compulsorily convertible non-cumulative preference shares (CCPSs, Series I) will now be converted into shares by early 2017. The CCPSs were issued by TTSL in two tranches from January 2014 raising Rs 45 billion to repay loans taken for buying spectrum.