Telenor issued a statement today saying it has appointed Deutsche Bank as “an independent financial advisor” to help it “evaluate funding alternatives for investment in India.” The moves comes after the Norwegian-headquartered company last month announced its intention to fund its acquisition of Indian greenfield operator Unitech Wireless via a rights issue of NOK12 billion (US$1.7 billion). Today’s appointment of Deutsche Bank is not a huge surprise as Telenor’s chief executive, Jon Fredrik Baksaas, earlier this month told the Financial Times that the company’s minority shareholders do not support a rights issue in the current economic climate.

The acquisition of Unitech would see Telenor pay US$1.1 billion for a 60 percent stake in the greenfield operator. Unitech Wireless, which is owned by India’s second-biggest real estate developer, is one of the six new companies that were successful in winning Indian GSM licences earlier this year. The company expects to launch services by mid-2009 and invest INR20,000 crore (US$4.4 billion) in the business over the next three years. It has obtained licences to operate in all 22 Indian telecom circles and has been allotted initial spectrum in 10 service areas. For Telenor, the move extends its mobile operations that currently cover 12 countries in Europe and Asia.