Khaitan & Co. are representing Bahrain Telecommunications in its acquisition of an additional 6.3 per cent stake in NRI investor C. Sivasankaran's telecom company S Tel. S Tel was promoted by Skycity Foundations and Telecom Investments Mauritius (TIML). The promoters' stakes were bought over by Sterling Infotech Group (now Siva Group), Sivasankaran's investment arm, and Batelco Millenium India (BMIL), a Batelco-controlled company incorporated in Mauritius.

 Batelco currently owns a 42.7 per cent stake in S Tel which it acquired in January of this year at an estimated Rs. 875 crores ($182 million), valuing the company at over Rs. 2000 crore ($416 million). The additional 6.3 per cent, valued at approximately Rs. 125 crore ($26 million), will raise Batelco's stake in S Tel to 49 per cent, subject to approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

Khaitan confirmed that they have been retained by Batelco on this transaction. The Khaitan team is led by Partners Kalpana Unadkat and Murali Neelakantan, both of whom joined Khaitan last year from Ashurst, London.

Indian telecom M&As have kept domestic and overseas law firms busy over the last year. It started with Middle Eastern telecom giant Etisalat's acquisition of a 45 per cent stake in Swan Telecom. AZB and Latham & Watkins advised Etisalat, while Wadia Ghandy advised Swan Telecom. It was followed by Unitech Wireless' sale of a 67.3 per cent stake to Telenor for a whopping Rs. 6210 crore ($1.2 Billion). Amarchand Mangaldass advised Unitech; Trilegal and allied firm Allen & Overy advised Telenor.

The biggest bang in the telecom sector, of course, has been created by the proposed merger of Bharti Airtel and MTN. This deal, involving five law firms and an army of lawyers, will be India's biggest cross-border M&A ever. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Webber Wentzel and Platinum Partners for MTN and AZB & Partners and Bowman Gilfillan for Bharti, are all benefitting from this deal, regardless of its final conclusion.