Talks were held back after Citic Telecom’s new CEO Lin Zhenhui – who took office last month – said he wasn’t keen to pursue a deal this early in his tenure, according to an unidentified source.
Reliance has been considering asset sales to reduce debt and raise funds for an upcoming auction of mobile licenses in India.
Last May, Citic Telecom began talks with Reliance regarding acquiring control of its Global Cloud Xchange (GCX) subsea cable operations.
GCX CEO Bill Barney said the company is still in talks with Citic Telecom but he declined to comment further on the status of the discussion, citing confidentiality agreements.