“Talks between South Africa’s MTN Group Ltd and Reliance Communications Ltd are focusing on a structure that would see MTN acquiring India’s second-largest mobile-phone operator to create a top-10 player in the industry world-wide,” the reporte quoted these people as saying.

The combined entity would create one of the world’s 10 largest mobile operators, the report said, adding MTN has a market value of about USD 40 billion against just under 30 billion dollar of Reliance Communications. “The people familiar with the situation declined to elaborate on details of the potential deal, which they said were still being hammered out,” the report said.

It quoted one of them as saying that “at this point, the talks are on a reverse takeover… But there’s no certainty this is going to be the final structure.” The report further noted that under the deal structure being considered, Anil Ambani, who holds a 66 per cent stake in RCom, could exchange his stake for shares in the merged entity.