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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (10144)	12/20/1999 4:09:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

Bharti BT Internet plans to acquire two portals soon Our Mumbai Bureau 20 DECEMBER BHARTI BT Internet Ltd, a leading private Internet service provider (ISPs), has said it will shortly announce the acquisition of two portal sites. The company has set its sights on acquiring a games and a lifestyle portal. This would be in addition to its recent acquisition of teenfunda.com , a portal aimed at teenagers. Bharti BT Internet, which offers its Internet access service under the Mantra Online brandname, also offers mantraonline.com, a full service portal site. Mr N Arjun, CEO of Bharti BT Intertnet refused to give details of the proposed deals. "We are looking to acquire websites for content. We intend to become an access- and content-oriented player. We currently have 2.5 million page views per month, and plan to increase it to 15 million page views per month over the next nine months." The company plans to have a total of six websites to generate its targeted 15 million page views per month. Though Mr Arjun declined to reveal the price at which the deals will be concluded, sources said that the Rs 499 crore two-phase Satyam Infoway-IndiaWorld deal has raised the stakes considerably. As a result, Bharti BT Internet is considering fresh equity infusion to fund the deals. Currently, the company has a paid-up equity of Rs 32 crore and an authorised capital of Rs 72 crore. Bharti Enterprises holds a 51 per cent stake in the company with British Telecom holding the balance 49 per cent. However, the expected fresh equity infusion won't be enough to cover all of Bharti BT Internet's plans. The company, which has a subscriber base of 50,400 and 44 corporate customers, is also planning to invest close to Rs 15 crore to set up three international gateways. Mr Arjun said: "We will be setting up the master facility in Delhi and the other gateways will be located in Mumbai and Bangalore." The gateways will involve cable and satellite connectivity, and the company is currently in negotiations with satellite companies such as Panamsat, Loral Orion, Teleglobe and Lockheed Martin. Apart from such capital expenditure, Bharti BT Internet is also going on an expansion drive. Currently, Mantra Online is available in only three cities and the company plans to include 22 new destinations over the next 18 months. This would require additional investments of Rs 50 crore for network deployment over the next 18 months. Apart from basic access services, Bharti BT Internet is also making a foray into the emerging applications service provider (ASP) business. As a first step in the ASP business, the company has started offering ERP hosting services. (et)