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NYSE-listed American Tower Corporation (ATC) has completed the acquisition of Vodafone India's telecom towers, totalling 10,200 sites, in a cash deal worth Rs 3,850 crore. Further, the deal with Idea Cellular is also expected to be completed in the first half of this calendar year.
On Monday, a source close to the development told BusinessLine that the deal has been sealed and is likely to be announced soon.
ATC acquired the company through its majority-owned Indian subsidiary ATC Telecom Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, the company said in a statement. “This portfolio will complement our existing footprint and help us serve our tenants in India as they expand 4G services in the coming years,” Amit Sharma, Executive Vice-President and President, Asia at ATC, said.
In a separate statement, Vodafone India also confirmed the development, adding Vodafone India’s standalone tower businesses were sold by Vodafone Mobile Services Ltd and Vodafone India Ltd.
Idea deal
In November 2017, ATC had announced its intention to acquire 20,135 telecom towers held by Vodafone India and Idea Cellular for about ₹7,850 crore ($1.2 billion).
For ATC (formerly Viom), the transactions are expected to generate about ₹2,100 crore in property revenue and about ₹800 crore in gross margin in the first full year of operations. For Idea Cellular, the deal will allow it to use the proceeds to strengthen its balance sheet. It will get about ₹4,000 crore from the deal.
The ongoing consolidation in the Indian telecom sector had resulted in ATC losing nearly 57,500 tenancies in India primarily due to the spate of exits by struggling mobile operators. The highest churn, for ATC, of 30,000 tenancies was from Tata Teleservices, which had sold its mobile business to Bharti Airtel in October last year, sources had told BusinessLine in March.
On March 20, 2017, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular announced plans to merge their mobile operations to create the largest operator in the country.
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