Indus Towers And Bharti Infratel Merge To Create World’s Second Largest Telecom Tower Firm With Over 160,000 Towers Across India

Bharti Airtel’s telecom tower arm Bharti Infratel and India’s largest telecom tower provider Indus Towers today (25 April) announced a merger that will create the world’s second largest telecom tower provider, reports Mint. The combined entity, called Indus Towers Limited, will continue to be list on stock exchanges with 163,000 towers across 22 telecom circles with a revenue of Rs 25,360 crore.

The development assumes significance in the background of Airtel reporting a 78 per cent loss in the last quarter, going down from Rs 373 crore to Rs 83 crore. However, Bharti Infratel did see a 2 per cent jump in consolidated profits, going from Rs 597 to Rs 606 crore. The firm also said that it expected profits to rise with the increase in 4G usage and the rollout of 5G services in India in the coming months.

Indus Towers is currently a joint venture between Bharti Infratel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and United States-based equity firm Providence with a shareholding patter of 42 per cent, 42 per cent, 11.15 per cent and 4.85 per cent respectively.

Idea has the option to sell its stake for Rs 6,500 crore or receive new shares based on the shareholding ratio while Providence can cash in 3.35 per cent of its shares.

Vodafone will be issued 783.1 million shares but the final number of shares issued to all three companies will be decided by other factors including adjustments, debt and the working capital.

The final merger is subject to approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and the Department of Telecom (DoT). It is expected to be complete by the end of the financial year on 31 March 2019.