Will Piramal sell its 11% stake in Vodafone this year?

Mumbai: Piramal Healthcare on Thursday said it plans to offload its 11 percent stake in telecom major Vodafone India and is well on track.

“We had invested in Vodafone and it was 24-36 months exit plan. We are still within the track for that and we will exit either sometime this year or next year,” Piramal Group chairman Ajay Piramal said.

Piramal Healthcare had picked up 11 percent stake for Rs 5,900 crore in two tranches in the Indian arm of Vodafone. The company had paid Rs 2,893 crore in August 2011 for 5.5 per cent stake and then another Rs 3,007 crore in February last year for 5.5 per cent.

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Piramal said his company chose to invest in Vodafone for the short term because of strong growth prospects. The company was expecting 17-20 percent return in around 18 months.

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“We are merely a short-term investor in Vodafone. We don’t want to be in the telecom sector for long. We have three options to exit. We could exit when Vodafone comes out with an initial public offering, or we could sell our stake to other companies, or we could even sell it to Vodafone,” Piramal earlier had said.

To a question on his group’s foray into the banking space, Piramal said the group was still weighing the prospects.

PTI