New Silk Route now owns 70% of Ascend

While the telecom infrastructure sector has been struggling, private equity major New Silk Route (NSR) has raised its stake in Ascend Telecom Infrastructure to 70 per cent over the last four years through equity infusions.

“NSR expects a huge demand for towers as telecom infrastructure is a critical component to grow the broadband wireless and 4G mobile services,” an industry source told BusinessLine . A company spokesperson declined to comment.

Prior to this, NSR’s stake in the company stood at 63 per cent, with the remainder held by TVS Interconnect Systems (a TVS Group company) and IL&FS. NSR

Ascend Telecom (formerly Aster Infrastructure) was founded in 2002, while NSR came in with its investments in 2007. However, the investments made at that time were not disclosed.

In 2011, NSR merged another tower company — India Telecom Infra Ltd, which was jointly owned by IL&FS and TVS Interconnect — with it in a share-swap deal. Ascend Telecom Infrastructure, which provides towers to all telecom firms in the country, has about 5,200 towers with a tenancy ratio of 1.93.

Ascend Telecom, according to sources, has also loaned some of its telecom masts to Reliance Jio Infocomm, the digital arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).

Founded in 2006, NSR has assets of about $1.4 billion under management and invests in private firms across India, Asia and West Asia. The private equity firm also has a minority stake in Reliance Communications’ tower subsidiary Reliance Infratel.

India has a total of 4 lakh towers, with the majority being held by Indus Towers (a three-way joint venture between Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular), with others owned by Bharti Infratel, Reliance Infratel and American Tower Corporation.

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