Indian tycoon Birla returns to Vodafone Idea board

BENGALURU (Reuters) - 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.

He also serves as the chairman of conglomerate Aditya Birla Group, which held an 18.07% stake in Vodafone Idea as of Dec. 31, according to data on Vodafone Idea's website.

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.

($1 = 82.0560 Indian rupees)

(This story has been corrected to say Aditya Birla Group had 18.07% stake in Vodafone Idea as of Dec. 31, not 8.36% stake as of Feb. 7, in paragraph 3; also changes data source to Vodafone Idea website from Refinitiv)

(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)