Vindhya Telelinks looks to hive off fibre infra biz, sell majority stake

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₹1,830 crore. The companies had not responded to queries from Mint till press time. Vindhya Telelinks, an MP Birla Group company, was formed as a public-private joint venture between Universal Cables Ltd and the Madhya Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation Ltd.

It makes copper and optical fiber telecommunication cables. The move to carve out its fibre infrastructure business comes amid a proposal by the European Commission Directorate General for Trade to levy anti-dumping duty - ranging between 8.7% and 11.4% - on nearly a dozen Indian optical fibre cable makers. The body, responsible for EU's policy on trade with nations outside of the EU, has proposed to levy an 8.7% tax on imports from Birla Cable Ltd, Universal Cables Ltd and Vindhya Telelinks Ltd to the European Union, Mint had reported in June.

While Vindhya Telelinks was initially a telecom equipment manufacturing firm, it has diversified into power distribution, system integration and oil and water pipelines that form the EPC division. The latter set of businesses have helped the company increase its sales to ₹4,110 crore in FY24, with the non-telecom verticals bringing in ₹3,523 crore. Profit in FY24 stood at ₹155 crore.

For the quarter ended June, Vindhya Telelinks recorded a revenue of ₹835 crore, with ₹19.63 in profits. Chief executive officer Sandeep Chawla told Fortune India in March this year that the irrigation projects within EPC are the growth segments for the company over the coming five to 10 years. On the other hand, core telecom business has been slow due to tepid demand from overseas companies, but cable manufacturing will continue to generate revenue locally as the government continues to require supplies of optical fibre cables for