Reliance Comm board approves Flag's foreign listing

Reliance Communications Ltd. said on Wednesday its board had approved a foreign listing of its unit Flag Telecom, and also wanted to look at "unlocking value" in Reliance Telecom Infrastructure.

Reliance Communications, India's second-biggest mobile telecom operator, earlier reported a surge in net profit for the fiscal third quarter to end-December to 9.24 billion rupees ($209 million) on a 76 percent rise in revenue to 37.55 billion rupees.

It said capex for the fiscal year to March 2007 would be more than 77 billion rupees.Reliance Communications plans to invest $1.5 billion in undersea cable unit Flag to increase its network capacity.

Shareholders had recently approved a transfer of Reliance Communications' more than 12,000 towers and related infrastructure to Reliance Telecom Infrastructure.Newspapers have reported that some global firms, including American Tower Corp., and some U.S. private equity groups were eyeing the infrastructure unit.

Reliance Communications, which is in the fray to buy smaller rival Hutchison Essar, had more than 30 million mobile customers as of Dec. 31, 2006, it said.