Proximus Group to acquire 58% stake in Route Mobile for Rs 5,922 cr

New Delhi: Belgium-based Promixus Group, through its subsidiary, will initially acquire a 57.56 per cent stake in enterprise messaging firm Route Mobile for Rs 5,922.4 crore in an all-cash deal, according to a regulatory filing.

The acquisition has triggered an open market offer for the sale of 26 per cent of Route Mobile in compliance with regulatory guidelines.

Proximus' stake in Route Mobile may go up to 75 per cent.

"Proximus Group will acquire 57.56 per cent of the shares in Route Mobile through Proximus Opal, for an initial Rs 59,224 million cash consideration for a price per share of Rs 1,626.40," Route Mobile said in the filing.

As a part of the agreement, some of the founding shareholders of Route Mobile will reinvest in a minority stake in Proximus Opal, a subsidiary of the Proximus Group and the US-based holding company of Telesign -- an affiliate of Proximus.

"Depending on the outcome of the MTO (mandatory takeover offer), the stake held by Proximus Opal could further increase to around 75 per cent of Route Mobile's shares. Total cash consideration for this part of the operation will be determined by the effective MTO take-up," the filing said.

The acquisition of the majority stake in Route Mobile and the MTO will be followed by a reinvestment of around 299.6 euro by some of the founding shareholders of Route Mobile for up to 14.5 per cent of the shares of Proximus Opal.

The reinvestment by some of the founding shareholders of Route Mobile implicitly values Telesign at 1.4 billion euros, the filing said.