Debt-laden Reliance Communications (RCom), which is planning to exit telecom business entirely, has received interests from two strategic investors for the residual business, including submarine cable and data centres.

“These are foreign flags with presence in India. It will take a little longer (for conclusion of the deals), but these companies are looking at acquiring 100 per cent or taking a controlling stake,” Bill Barney, Chief Executive Officer, RCom and its submarine cable subsidiary Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), said. “These are mostly funds,” he said, but did not name the strategic investors.

Of the two buyers one is a consortium of four funds, he said, adding that the company is “optimistic” of getting a networth of $1 billion. The two buyers include a consortium of four funds which have come together for the bid. However, the sales might take a bit of time, with no timeline in sight, as the buyers now will have to start the due diligence process.

RCom now has nine data centres and also holds 25 per cent of the total domestic fibre or about 9,000- route km of terrestrial fibre — which were not sold to RJio — under its enterprise business. Further, GCX owns about 69,000-route km of sub-sea cable is also among the assets the strategic investors are interested in. For the company, realty will be the engine for future growth with the company planning to develop Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC), 133-acre IT park in Navi Mumbai, with a project value of over ₹25,000 crore.

GCX, which is building a new cable — Eagle — expects the submarine cable to be lit up next year.

Eagle, which is being financed by project partners and at an estimated cost of $600 million, on completion would connect Asia and Europe over a 22,000-route km.

“It will be operational in the next 24 months,” Barney said.

On commissioning, it will be GCX’s sixth submarine cable system, in addition to FEA, FA-1, FNAL, FALCON and HAWK.

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