According to Mr Anoop Roy, general manager, corporate communications, Spectranet, the company has decided not to accept the Bharti offer.

Spectranet decided not to strike a deal with the Bharti Group following a board meeting here on Wednesday, said Mr Roy. Spectranet, however, has not given any reason for not accepting the offer. ``The offer is not right for us at this point,'' said Mr Roy.

On being contacted, the Bharti Group said that the deal did not suit its requirements.

The Bharti Group said in a faxed statement: ``We have extensively evaluated the project on key technical and financial parameters. We firmly believe that based on our internal benchmark standards which includes our assessment parameters, business benchmarks and financial indicators, we do not think it is appropriate for Bharti to invest in Spectranet.'' The Bharti statement added: ``In fact, our assessment on the valuation is significantly lower than Spectranet's expectation. Hence, for all current purposes, our discussions with Spectranet have now been terminated.''

Spectranet has been planning to offload equity in the venture to strategic partners and was said to be in active talks with the players in similar business including the Bharti group for clinching a deal. Hitherto, Bharti had been maintaining that discussions on possible financial arrangements with Spectranet were in process, but now it is clear that Bharti has decided to terminate all discussions on the subject.