Kumar Mangalam Birla returns to Vodafone Idea board

Indian billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla has returned to the board of Vodafone Idea Ltd as an additional director less than two years after leaving the mobile service provider.

Birla, formerly a chairman at the debt-ridden telecom giant, will join the board effective April 20, Vodafone's Indian JV said in an exchange disclosure.

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He also serves as the chairman of conglomerate Aditya Birla Group, which held an 8.36 per cent stake in Vodafone Idea as of Feb 7, according to Refinitiv data.

Earlier in the day, the telecom company said Krishna Kishore Maheshwari, a former top executive at Aditya Birla Group-owned Ultratech Cement Ltd, had quit as a non-executive director, citing personal reasons.

Vodafone Idea's net debt stood at 2.23 trillion rupees ($27.18 billion) before the Indian government in February converted the nearly $2 billion of dues that it was owed into equity, becoming the company's biggest shareholder.

In 2021, the government approved a rescue package for debt-strapped telecom companies, allowing them to convert interest on deferred adjusted gross revenue owed to the government into equity.