The Indian mobile operator agreed to offload its 9900-strong portfolio to ATC Telecom Infrastructure – a subsidiary of American Tower – as part of an effort to raise funds ahead of its mega merger with Vodafone’s Indian unit, which is nearing completion.
ATC Telecom Infrastructure – renamed from Viom following another merger of towercos – also struck a deal to buy Vodafone’s Indian towers. Both deals will add 20,000 to its existing portfolio, which is around 42,200 strong.
Once the Vodafone and Idea merger is completed, 6,300 co-located tenancies of the two operators on the combined standalone tower portfolio will collapse into single tenancies over a period of two years without the payment of exit penalties.
Part of the deal with ATC sees it and the combined Vodafone/Idea agreeing to treat each other as long-term preferred partners, Idea said.
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ATC CEO Jim Taiclet said at the time the deal was announced: "We expect the addition of these two high quality portfolios to be highly complementary to our existing assets and to contribute to long-term leasing growth as India’s leading mobile operators accelerate their 4G network deployments."
It comes as rumours swirled about ATC agreeing to a deal worth around $900 million to settle a compensation dispute with Tata Teleservices for winding up around 30,000 tower tenancies.
Bharti’s tower unit, Bharti Infratel, is also set for a mega merger with Indus Towers that would create the second largest tower company in the world, with over 163,000 towers operating across all 22 Indian telecoms circles.
