Indus Towers, Bharti Infratel merging to become world No. 2 for masts

BENGALURU/MUMBAI (Reuters): Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel Ltd. agreed to combine operations in a deal that will create the world’s second-largest mobile masts company measured by numbers of towers.

The combined company, which will lag only China Tower, will remain listed on Indian bourses. It will have a nationwide presence with more than 163,000 towers, the owners of both companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday. Top Indian telecoms carrier Bharti Airtel, the majority owner of Bharti Infratel, will end up with a stake of 33.8 percent to 37.2 percent in the combined entity, which will be called Indus Towers. Bharti Airtel separately said it plans to engage with potential investors to evaluate a stake sale in the combined mobile masts entity, which will have an equity value of 965 billion rupees ($14.5 billion), sending the carrier’s stock up as much as 5.2 percent. The tower deal comes ahead of an announced merger of Vodafone Group Plc’s Indian unit and Idea Cellular which could potentially overtake Bharti Airtel as India’s biggest phone carrier. That deal is set to close in the first half of this year.

Vodafone and Idea, which both own stakes in Indus Towers, had said they would look at selling their stakes in Indus, and also dispose of other tower assets they separately own to help cut debt in the merged telecoms carrier.

While mobile masts operators in India have benefited from growing demand from carriers that have rolled out high-speed 4G services, they have also lost tenants in some areas as several money-losing carriers shutdown operations.