News
Vinod Sawhny replaced by new co-CEOs Bill Barney, Gurdeep Singh with immediate effect.
Reliance Communications announced on Saturday that its chief executive Vinod Sawhny has quit with immediate effect, citing personal reasons.
Taking his place are Bill Barney – who oversees Reliance’s enterprise and carrier operations – and wireless chief, Gurdeep Singh. They will serve as co-CEOs of Rcom in addition to their current roles.
Sawhny joined Reliance Communications in 2014 from fierce rival Bharti Airtel.
His sudden departure comes at a critical time for the operator.
After months of negotiation, in September, Rcom finally agreed to form a 50:50 joint venture with Aircel.
The combined entity will have close to 190 million subscribers and 448 MHz of spectrum acros the 850 MHz, 1800 MHz, and 2.1 GHz bands. The deal is expected to close in 2017.
Rcom is also still in the process of integrating Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd (SSTL), which it agreed to acquire in November 2015 and offers services under the MTS brand. The merger is still going through the approvals process and late last week was waved through by the Rajasthan High Court.
As well as mergers and acquisitions, Rcom is also currently participating in India’s biggest ever spectrum auction.
The process got underway over the weekend, with total bids topping more than 535 billion rupees (€7.2 billion) after day one.
