BENGALURU — U.S. wireless carrier Verizon Communications Inc and Amazon.com Inc may invest more than $4 billion for a stake in India's Vodafone Idea Ltd, the Mint newspaper reported on Thursday, sending shares in the struggling Indian telecom firm up as much as 14%.
The news comes two days after India's Supreme Court ruled that mobile carriers must settle government dues within 10 years, giving Vodafone Idea some reprieve in a case that it had said could affect its ability to continue as a going concern.
Vodafone Idea, a joint venture between Britain's Vodafone Group Plc and India's Idea Cellular, still owes roughly 500 billion rupees ($6.8 billion) to the Indian government. It is among India's top three telecom firms by subscribers.
Vodafone Idea's stake-sale talks had been paused pending the court ruling, but Amazon and Verizon are now set to resume discussions, Mint reported https://ift.tt/3gYzt1n, citing two unnamed people aware of the negotiations.
Amazon and Verizon did not return emails seeking comment outside regular U.S. business hours.
Shares in Vodafone Idea were up 9.6% at 10.85 rupees by 0645 GMT.
The Financial Times reported in May that Alphabet Inc's Google was considering buying a roughly 5% stake in Vodafone Idea. Reuters reported in June that Amazon was in talks to buy a stake in Vodafone Idea's Indian rival Bharti Airtel.
Separately on Thursday, Indian news channel CNBC-TV 18 reported https://twitter.com/CNBCTV18Live/status/1301401243047268352 that Vodafone Idea could "take stock" of a sale of its optic fibre business at a Friday board meeting scheduled to consider a fundraising plan.
Canada's Brookfield Asset Management Inc and private equity group KKR were contenders for the business, with Brookfield seen as the frontrunner, CNBC-TV 18 said.
Vodafone Idea declined to comment on "speculation" when contacted by Reuters. Representatives for Brookfield and KKR did not immediately return Reuters emails seeking comment.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
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