Top sources closely involved in negotiations said Bharti Enterprises, a joint venture between Sunil Mittal's Bharti group and British Telecom, is expected to buyout the stake for Rs 18 per share.

Bharti Enterprises chairman and managing director Sunil Mittal, when contacted, said talks were on with some shareholders for acquiring their stake in JT Mobile. He, however, said that "a number of things have to be sorted out" before Bharti goes ahead with the deal. Mittal also said that he was interested only in a majority stake as Bharti wants complete control of any company it acquires.

Sources said Bharti is also negotiating with other shareholders in the company to buy out their holding. The other prominent foreign shareholder in JT Mobile is Telia AB of Sweden which has 26 per cent equity stake.

The Indian promoters Raj Mohan Rao and Raghu Kataria hold 31 per cent stake through United Telecom while the south-based Sanmar group holds 20 per cent. Sources said that Rao and Kataria are not keen to sell their shareholding at present. Kataria, when contacted, refused to comment on Bharti's move to acquire a stake in JT Mobile.

This will be the second major acquisition for Bharti Enterprises. The company has already decided to acquire the 40.1 per cent stake held by Crompton Greaves in the Chennai metro cellular service provider. The negotiations on this were closed in the first week of October this year.Sources said that Bharti's interest in JT Mobile makes sense as Bharti was the basic service provider in Madhya Pradesh and had ambitious expansion plans in the telecom services sector in that region. With Madhya Pradesh bordering both AP and Karnataka, a stake in Andhra makes strategic sense, they added.

Sources said that Bharti was keen to conclude the deal soon as the valuation of telecom licences is set to go up as result of the new telecom policy being approved.

In addition, the final percentage of revenue share, which is to be determined by the government on the basis of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) recommendations will also contribute to increased expectations in prospective sellers. At present the percentage of revenue share has been fixed at 15 per cent and is likely to be revised downwards.