Tejas Networks [BSE: 540595, NSE: TEJASNET] today announced that it has executed definitive agreements with Panatone Finvest Limited (“Panatone”), a subsidiary of Tata Sons Private Limited (“TATA”), which will entail:
a) Preferential allotment of 1.94 crore equity shares at a price per equity share of INR 258 per share aggregating to INR 500 crore;
b) Preferential allotment of 3.68 crore warrants, each carrying a right to subscribe to 1 (one) equity share at an exercise price of INR 258 per equity share aggregating to INR 950 crore, which may be exercised by Panatone in one or more tranches during the period commencing from the date of allotment of the warrants until expiry of 11 (eleven) months from the date of allotment of the warrants;
c) Preferential allotment of 1.55 crore warrants, each carrying a right to subscribe to 1 (one) equity share at an exercise price of INR 258 per equity share aggregating to INR 400 crore, which may be exercised by Panatone in one or more tranches during the period commencing from the expiry of 12 (twelve) months from the date of allotment of the warrants until expiry of 18 (eighteen) months from the date of allotment of the warrants;
d) Acquisition of up to 13 lakh equity shares of the Tejas Networks from certain personnel in management, at a price not exceeding INR 258 per equity share aggregating to INR 34 crore, subject to such terms and conditions as mutually agreed between the parties;
Panatone and other certain companies of the Tata group would make a Public Announcement to acquire up to 4.03 crore equity shares of Tejas Networks representing 26.00% of the emerging voting capital in accordance with SEBI Takeover Regulations.
Tejas Networks sees a very large opportunity in the telecom sector both in India and global markets with the new cycle of investments in 5G and fiber-based broadband rollouts. Tejas Networks will utilize the proceeds raised from the preferential allotment to invest organically and inorganically in the research & development, sales and marketing, people, infrastructure and to enhance its manufacturing and operational capabilities to cater to this large market opportunity, and for other general corporate purpose.
Speaking on this transaction, Mr. Saurabh Agrawal, Executive Director of Tata Sons Private Limited, said “We are excited to partner with Tejas Networks, India’s leading telecom and network company with a strong DNA of R&D. We look forward to working with the highly experienced management team of Tejas Networks and creating a full stack of globally competitive wireline and wireless products.”
Mr. V Balakrishnan, Chairman of Tejas Networks, said “We are delighted about our association with the Tata group, which has a long history of building highly successful global businesses of scale. This association provides us the necessary financial resources, global relationships and strong ecosystem to innovate and scale our business.”
Mr. Sanjay Nayak, CEO and Managing Director at Tejas Networks said “We are privileged to be part of the Tata group, which has a rich legacy as India’s most visible and trusted business brand. Tejas Networks was started with a vision of creating a top-tier global telecom equipment company from India. The association with Tata group will accelerate the realisation of this vision and enable us to address the large market opportunity available to us to build a financially strong global company, backed by a trusted brand. I am fully committed to making this a success and am excited about the next phase of our journey.”
Sanjay Nayak shall continue as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer to lead Tejas Networks along with the existing management team through the next phase of growth.
The preferential allotment of the equity shares and warrants has been approved by the Board of Directors of Tejas Networks and the transactions are subject to shareholders’ approval and other customary closing conditions and approvals.
Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited is acting as the manager to the open offer and Khaitan & Co is acting as the legal advisor to the transaction.
About Panatone: Panatone is a subsidiary of the Tata Sons Private Limited
About Tata Group: Founded by Jamsetji Tata in 1868, the Tata group is a global enterprise, headquartered in India, comprising 30 companies across ten verticals. The group operates in more than 100 countries across six continents, with a mission ‘To improve the quality of life of the communities we serve globally, through long-term stakeholder value creation based on Leadership with Trust’. Tata Sons is the principal investment holding company and promoter of Tata companies. Sixty-six percent of the equity share capital of Tata Sons is held by philanthropic trusts, which support education, health, livelihood generation and art and culture. In 2019-20, the revenue of Tata companies, taken together, was $106 billion (INR 7.5 trillion). These companies collectively employ over 750,000 people. Each Tata company or enterprise operates independently under the guidance and supervision of its own board of directors. There are 29 publicly-listed Tata enterprises with a combined market capitalisation of $123 billion (INR 9.3 trillion) as on March 31, 2020. Companies include Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Chemicals, Tata Consumer Products, Titan, Tata Capital, Tata Power, Tata Advanced Systems, Indian Hotels and Tata Communications. For more details visit www.tata.com.
Additional Information
SHAREHOLDERS AND INVESTORS ARE URGED TO READ ALL RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH AND THE STOCK EXCHANGES CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE AS THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION AND THE PARTIES TO THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION.
For Q1-FY22, consolidated net revenue was Rs. 144.3 crore, which was a YoY increase of 86.4%, resulting in a profit before tax of Rs. 8.3 crore as compared to a loss before tax of Rs. 9.8 crore, for corresponding previous period. Profit after tax was Rs. 7.6 crore as compared to loss after tax of Rs. 9.8 crore for corresponding previous period.
Mr. Sanjay Nayak, Managing Director and CEO of Tejas Networks said, “We are on track for our business growth and improved profitability, driven by rapid adoption of broadband services and increased bandwidth consumption, which is generating robust demand for our equipment. Our international revenues grew by 81.8 % YoY and was 52% of total revenues for the quarter. Our order book is healthy and has increased to Rs. 701 crore. We continue to see supportive Government policies for promoting domestic manufacturing and we have applied under the Government’s Performance Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom equipment.
Mr. Venkatesh Gadiyar, CFO said, “With increased revenues, we continue to improve our profitability. However, our working capital was higher compared to previous quarter, primarily due to delayed payments from few of our customers because of COVID lockdowns, and higher payments made to our component suppliers to minimize supply chain disruptions. We expect to get our working capital normalized in the next few quarters. As on June 30, 2021 our cash and cash equivalents, including investment in liquid mutual funds and deposits with financial institutions, stood at Rs. 312 crores and we continue to be a debt-free Company.”
Tejas’ state-of-the-art 100G DWDM/OTN solution was selected by TelOne after a competitive bidding process and a successful field trial. Tejas was able to successfully demonstrate high-speed transmission of multiple 100G lambdas while meeting the stringent performance and reliability requirements in a cost-effective manner.
Mr. Sanjay Nayak, CEO and MD of Tejas Networks said, “We are delighted that TelOne has deployed our latest 100G/100G+ DWDM/OTN technology for its network expansion. Our solution empowers our customers to diversify their existing DWDM vendor base and use our proven, cost-effective solution to expand and inter-operate. It is a prime example of how our open and flexible software-defined-hardware™ architecture is enabling our customers to become “future-ready” by enabling them to upgrade their existing networks with the latest technologies at incremental cost.”
Mrs. Chipo Mtasa, Managing Director at TelOne said, “TelOne offers access to a vast network footprint in Zimbabwe. With rising demand for bandwidth and higher speeds from our customers, we were looking for a versatile solution that could significantly expand the capacity on our existing fibre network with incremental investments. We were impressed by the capabilities of the Tejas’ solution and its ability to seamlessly carry 100G services with no inter-operability issues. Tejas products have very versatile software, are simple to configure and easy to operate. We appreciate the support of a highly responsive Tejas team, that was able to design and deliver an end-to-end network solution in the shortest period of time.”
Mr. Rakesh Raghoonandan, Vice President Sales – Tejas Networks Africa said, “In the TelOne network we delivered our DWDM/OTN solution using our scalable and versatile TJ1600 platform. Our solution unlocks new opportunities for service providers to multiply the available capacity on their networks by more than 10X, without being limited by their existing network deployment. The TelOne deployment is yet another example of our cutting-edge technology that we have deployed over several networks across Africa.”
For Q4-FY21, consolidated net revenue was Rs. 201.6 crore, which was a YoY increase of 282.6%*, resulting in a profit before tax of Rs. 18.5 crore as compared to a loss before tax and before impairment of intangible assets of Rs. 56.7 crore, for corresponding previous period. Profit after tax was Rs. 33.6 crore as compared to loss after tax and before impairment of intangible asset of Rs. 56.7 crore for corresponding previous period.
For the year ended March 31, 2021, net revenue was Rs. 514.8 crore, which was a YoY increase of 35.6%, with a profit before tax of Rs. 22.5 crore as compared to a loss before tax and before impairment of intangibles was Rs. 68.7 crore for corresponding previous period. Profit after tax was Rs. 37.5 crore as compared to a loss after tax and before impairment of intangible asset of Rs. 167.3 crore for corresponding previous period.
Mr. Sanjay Nayak, Managing Director and CEO of Tejas Networks said, “We ended our financial year with strong revenue as well as profitability growth in Q4-FY21. Our international business during the year saw a robust YoY revenue growth of 62% and was 40% of our total revenue (up from 33% during FY20), led by customers in Africa, Mid-east and South-East Asia. We are seeing positive tailwinds for our business in India due to increased demand for high-speed broadband connections and Government policy for promoting domestic telecom equipment. We continued to see strong order inflows as well as new customer wins, resulting in a YoY booking growth of 54% and we ended the year with an order book of Rs. 679 crore.”
Mr. Venkatesh Gadiyar, CFO said, “Our quarterly financial performance continues to improve, as we generated cash of Rs. 47 crore and Rs. 158 crore from operations during Q4-FY21 and full FY21 respectively. We also improved our working capital, with reduction in inventory levels as well as receivables. During the quarter, our cash and cash equivalents, including investment in liquid mutual funds and deposits with financial institutions, improved by Rs. 29 crore to Rs. 364 crore as on March 31, 2021 and we continue to be a debt-free Company.”
As on date, we have filed for 349 patents of which 127 have been granted.
* Q4 FY-20 was an exception
GigNet is a premier digital infrastructure company with a comprehensive digital services portfolio of Internet, WiFi, fiber-to-the-home, and other advanced solutions for hospitality and enterprise customers in Mexico. To support the rapid growth of GigNet’s “Smart Communities” business segment for planned developments across the region, Tejas Networks will supply its full range of last-mile access products based on GPON/NG-PON fiber broadband technology, ultra-converged packet aggregation products based on MPLS-TP/PTN technology, and terabit-scale optical backbone products based on OTN/DWDM technology, all centrally managed by a universal and versatile SDN-ready network management system (NMS).
Paul A. Moore, Chairman & CEO of GigNet said, “GigNet prides itself for being the broadband provider of choice for sophisticated business customers and developers in Mexico demanding the strictest reliability, quality and service-level guarantees. GigNet has ambitious plans in Cancun and Riviera Maya as the leader in the digital transformation for enterprises, residential developers and service providers seeking high-speed connectivity and access to services such as streaming, cloud services, social media, biometric security, and data analytics. We selected Tejas for their innovative, software-defined hardware™ architecture that enables extreme service agility and seamless feature upgrades to new technologies, to help us maintain our competitive advantage. They have also demonstrated outstanding technical support capabilities locally in Mexico and have been very responsive to our rapidly accelerating customer installations.”
Mr. Sanjay Nayak, Managing Director and CEO of Tejas Networks said, “We are delighted to partner with GigNet as they increase their robust, flexible and scalable network to profitably deliver premium, SLA-driven services to their customers, using our innovative products. We are excited that they have selected our end-to-end optical and access products, for this prestigious network in Mexico.”
SAN FRANCISCO, March 1, 2021 — Saankhya Labs, India’s 5G communication solutions disruptor, today announced Federal Communication Commission, (FCC), USA certification for its Broadcast Radio Head (BRH). The BRH complies with FCC Title 47CFR part 27 and part 15.
BRH is an innovative concept pioneered by Saankhya Labs for helping digital terrestrial broadcasters to increase their reach and market share. This is achieved by ‘Cellularizing’ the broadcast transmitters to provide ubiquitous coverage of broadcast signal for high-quality content reception in mobile, automotive, and other portable devices.
Traditional broadcast transmitters use very high-power transmitters fitted on tall towers (a.k.a. High Power High Tower – HPHT) to give coverage to a large area ranging across 10s of miles. However, these networks needed high-gain external antenna to get reliable reception indoors. BRH works on the concept of very low power and low tower transmission (a.k.a. Low Power Low Tower – LPLT), similar to the power levels of a cellular radio transmitter. By adopting the coverage pattern of cellular network, BRH’s can provide uniform coverage even indoors and in devices that do not have high-gain external antenna.
With a large number of people watching video on their mobile devices, the BRH will enable broadcasters to effectively target these consumers. Broadcasters can also monetize the broadcast by showing hyper-local advertisements and provide newer data services over their broadcast network.
The BRH can also be deployed as a part of 5G Broadcast solutions developed by Saankhya Labs. This solution is based on the convergence of Broadcast and mobile Broadband network, in which a mobile network operator can intelligently use the BRH network (that is co-located with mobile radios), to offload some of the high bandwidth-consuming data traffic, such as video.
“We are thrilled to bring often disparate mobile and broadcast ecosystems together. Our BRH offering significantly benefits both ecosystems with a cost-effective solution for high-bandwidth data as well as expanded market access opportunities,” said Parag Naik, CEO of Saankhya Labs.
By enabling ubiquitous coverage and delivering better quality of service (QoS), BRH enables broadcasters to maximize their spectrum and deliver data to various applications such as OTT and Linear video content to mobile phones, Firmware upgrade over the air (FOTA), infotainment, maps and GIS data for connected automotive use cases, plus other IoT applications.
The BRH supports Next-Gen Broadcast Standards like ATSC 1.0, ATSC 3.0, DVB-T, DVB-T2, DVB-T2-lite and FeMBMS. It has configurable bandwidths supporting 5, 6 and 8 MHz band schemes, achieving data rates that can exceed 50 Mbps.
Saankhya has already delivered FCC-certified BRHs to a large US-based broadcaster.
Saankhya Labs, leveraging its broadcast expertise, has already developed a chipset that can be integrated into mobile devices to gain maximum benefits of this technology. A reference smartphone using this chipset has been developed in collaboration with Sinclair Broadcasting Group and its innovations group ONE Media 3.0 LLC, USA.
Mark Aitken, SVP Sinclair Broadcast Group said, “These combined technologies developed collaboratively bring robust and reliable broadcast capability direct to automotive, IoT, mobile, and portable devices with extended reach and service areas. The deployment of a ‘cellularized’ broadcast infrastructure brings true broadcast into the 5G marketplace, providing new monetization opportunities.”
About Saankhya LabsSaankhya Labs, a subsidiary of Tejas Networks, is an innovative leading-edge technology company with a breadth of wireless communication system solutions. Saankhya offers a wide range of communication products for 5G NR, Broadcast, and Satellite Communication applications. With over 100 international technology patents and unique ‘chipset-to-systems’ expertise, Saankhya’s solutions include award-winning SDR chipsets for communication, next-gen OpenRAN Solutions for 5G networks, multi-standard direct to mobile (D2M) broadcast, and Satcom solutions.
About SinclairSinclair is one of the largest and most diversified television broadcasting companies in the country. Including pending transactions, the Company owns, operates, and/or provides services to 173 television stations in 81 markets, broadcasting 513 channels, and having affiliations with all the major networks. Sinclair is the leading local news provider in the country, as well as a producer of live sports content. Sinclair’s content is delivered via multiple platforms, including over-the-air, multi-channel video program distributors, and digital platforms. The Company regularly uses its website as a key source of Company information which can be accessed at www.sbgi.net.
About ONE Media 3.0, LLCONE Media 3.0, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sinclair, was formed for the purpose of developing business opportunities, products, and services associated with the ATSC 3.0 “Next Generation” broadcast transmission standard and TV platform. ONE Media 3.0’s objectives include the planning and buildout of a Single Frequency Network; designing, developing, and deploying a national Internet Protocol core network infrastructure; and the buildout of a user collection and measurement system.
