Vodafone may sell extra towers to Bharti, Indus (India)
If sources are to be believed, Vodafone Essar may sell the telecom towers in the seven service areas outside the Indus Towers agreement to Bharti Airtel or Indus Towers. Vodafone has taken the bids from Viom and GTL Infrastructure as benchmarks to Bharti and Indus.
According to the sources, if either of the companies matches or value the assets in a similar range, Vodafone could get more stakes in Indus Towers or cash. Vodafone had earlier sought bids from telecom tower companies and Tata group-owned Viom Networks and independent tower operator GTL Infrastructure emerged as bidders.
They added that the bids from the two had come in the range of US$767.34-US$701.56 million for around 7,000 towers with at least one tenant on each tower.
Indus Towers is a joint venture between Bharti and Vodafone that hold 42% each and Idea Cellular has the remaining 16%. The company operates in 16 circles leasing tower space to telecom operators for monthly rentals. Tower companies have become big in the country over the last two year as call rates plummeted and operators need to reduce capital costs to maintain margins and cash flow.
Firms Eye $2.5B Saudi Tower Business
Saudi Telecom Company and competitor Mobily may sell a majority stake in a combined $2.5 billion merged towers business, Reuters reported. Swedish company Ericsson is considering a bid alongside Saudi private equity firm Abraaj Capital and SREI Infrastructure, Reuters added. Other potential bidders include a partnership between Indian group GTL Infrastructure and Abu Dhabi investment fund Mubadala.
(Reuters) – Saudi Telecom Company (7010.SE) and competitor Mobily (7020.SE) could sell a large stake in a combined $2.5 billion merged towers business, three people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Talks for the merger are on, but this is subject to negotiations and terms and conditions put forth by both companies,†one of the people said.
The person said the Saudi firms would look at offloading a 51 percent stake if a joint business with 15,000 towers was created.
Another person said the companies were undecided over whether to sell 49 percent or 51 percent.
We are not 100 percent sure that a majority stake sale is going to be on the table,†the second person said.
State-owned Saudi Telecom, the country’s largest telecom, has around 11,500 towers. Mobily, 26 percent owned by UAE group Etisalat (ETEL.AD), has about 3,500 towers.
Infrastructure sharing gives companies access to equipment without the heavy need for major capital investment.
Indian group GTL Infrastructure (GTLI.BO) could bid for the stake with Abu Dhabi investment fund Mubadala and would fund an acquisition through a mix of debt and equity, the sources said.
Swedish company Ericsson (ERICb.ST) would bid alongside Saudi private equity firm Abraaj Capital and SREI Infrastructure (SREI.BO), the parent of Indian group Quippo, could form a third bidding team with Zamil Group, the people said.
Mobily declined to comment. STC could not be reached for comment.
Vodafone Essar in talks to sell 7,000 Towers
If sources are to be believed, India’s Vodafone Essar is reported to have received two bids for the 7,000 towers that the company is looking to sell to a dedicated tower operator. The bids are from GTL Infrastructure and Viom Networks.
Listed tower operator, GTL Infrastructure, which is India’s largest tower network is still absorbing the 17,000 towers it brought last year from Aircel. Rival bidder, Viom is the privately held company formerly known as Quippo-WTTIL.
Vodafone Essar has been looking to offload the 7,000 towers it owns that overlap with the towers it owns through its Indus Towers joint venture with Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular.
The towers cover seven telecoms licensed circles. However, the company has faced opposition to its plans to split off the tower assets into a separate company from tax authorities in Gujarat and Delhi.
RCOM to merge enterprise business operations (India)
If sources are to be believed, Reliance Communications’ (RCOM) corporate customer business is undergoing a major restructuring, with its domestic enterprise business being merged with its global operations. The move could be a first step towards an asset sale deal.
According to sources, the recently formed division will include the company’s overseas cable network assets presently under Reliance Globalcom, which accounts for all international business — and domestic corporate customers. The division will also include data centres. Later, the division may be converted into a subsidiary and sold to strategic or financial investors.
According to one of the sources, RCOM is merging the two business segments to best use the synergies between them. The new combined enterprise business unit will account for approximately 35% of RCOM’s revenue. A formal announcement is expected soon.
The Anil Ambani Group Company, India’s second largest telecom operator is seeking to raise funds either via a minority stake sale in the company or by selling some of the assets. It was recently in talks to sell its telecom towers to GTL Infrastructure, but these talks did not conclude in a deal. RCOM requires funds to withdraw a part of its US677.81 million debt. In the past, it has attempted to publicly list or sell its global business and list its infrastructure arm, but is yet to complete any of these transactions. According to officials, at this stage the restructuring is purely operational to remove redundancy in services offered to domestic and international clients.
The source further claimed that this restructuring will result in a single team handling all the services, in India and abroad, for each client.
The enterprise business is measured high margin as companies give higher amounts for managed services compared with retail customers. It is an important source of revenue for telecom players like Reliance Communications that have been battling the effect of crashing call rates since late 2008.
‘Reliance-GTL’ Infrastructure asset deal worth US$9 billion on Halt
Reliance Infratel, the tower subsidiary of Reliance Communication, and GTL Infrastructure have decided to suspend their deal without stating any reason.
According to Reliance Infratel, Reliance Communication is now in discussions with certain other strategic and financial investors to pursue a similar transaction aimed at significant reduction in the company’s debt from the passive infrastructure and related assets in its 95% owned subsidiary. Owing to the provisions of mutual confidential agreements, RCom cannot provide any comment on the reasons for the inability to conclude a transaction with GTL Infrastructure.
The deal, which was said to be the major domestic acquisition of this year, was likely to help the consolidation in India’s telecoms industry. Reliance in talks to sell 26% of itself to Etisalat, a UAE-based telecommunications services provider.
According to an analyst with IIFL, Reliance has net debt of $7bn, giving it a ratio of net debt to earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization of 4.5 times. The deal with GTL, under which the tower company, which is controlled by multi-millionaire Manoj Tirodkar, would have bought nearly 50,000 towers from Reliance, would have reduced the mobile operator’s net debt to EBITDA two – three times. It would certainly have put RCom on a forward-facing trajectory.
According to Reliance, the non-binding term sheet with GTL had expired, enabling it to talk to other parties.
Indian telco Aircel reveals 2010 investment plans
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With a view to expand the areas of operation, an investment of approximately USD1.4 billion in 2010 has been planned by Indian mobile network operator Aircel. The aim of the company is to roll out services in five circles by June 2010.
The five circles include- Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Punjab. 17 of India’s 22 telecoms circles receive Aircel network. In addition to the investment this year, around USD2.6 billion between 2011 and 2012 will also be spent by the company.
Around 17,000 towers to GTL Infrastructure was divested by the mobile operator in January 2010, in a deal worth approximately INR85 billion (USD1.85 billion). According to Sandip Das, CEO of Maxis, the company’s growth is not restricted for lack of funds. The tower hive off had given us liquidity of around USD3 billion.
GIL to set up 6700 cell sites across India
In a major expansion drive aimed at consolidating its business of providing cellular operators shared infrastructure, shared telecom infrastructure services provider GTL Infrastructure Limited (GIL) proposes to build, own, and operate shared passive telecom infrastructure for approx cell sites at an investment of over Rs2,030 crore.
GTL Infrastructure Limited (GIL) established by GTL Limited as an infrastructure company to provide shared infrastructure assets and services in the telecom sector, passive telecom infrastructure includes the tower, shelter, air-conditioning equipment, diesel generator, battery, etc. for cellular operators.
The fresh roll out in passive telecom infrastructure includes setting up of new greenfield sites will be based on cellular operator requirements who will be its anchor user. These sites will, however be capable of accommodating other operators for co-location and will be marketed by GIL to prospective telecom operators on a sharing basis. The sites would either be ground-based sites (GBS) or rooftop sites (RTS).
As part of its acquisition plans, GIL would acquire existing sites from various operators and refurbish them to suit sharing and co-location requirements.
Passive telecommunication infrastructure constitutes around 65 per cent of the total capital cost with active component making up the remaining 35 per cent. However, given the recent rise in property, steel and cement prices, the capital cost of passive infrastructure is going up while that of the active infrastructure is coming down with declining prices of electronic components.
While overall telecom infrastructure requires huge investment outlays, such investments often turn out to be risky propositions given the rapid introduction of successive generations of new technology. Operators are occasionally faced with a situation where even before recovering their investments in existing infrastructure they have to embark on further investments in new generation networks.
Shared Infrastructure will bring down the passive infrastructure cost of telecom operators by at least 35 per cent to 40 per cent, the company feels.
According to Prakash Ranjalkar, chief operating officer, GIL, “The objectives of infrastructure sharing is to maximise the use of existing infrastructure and provide cost effective infrastructure for coverage requirements and in low ARPU areas. GIL’s business model focuses on creating value through shared infrastructure for both the operators and the company. Indian telecom sector is witnessing a huge growth and GIL would like to act as catalyst to fuel this growth by bringing down the capital expenditure and operational costs for telecom companies and fuel growth”
India has the eighth largest telecom network in the world, growing at a rate of over 20 per cent per annum. The New Telecom Policy of 1999 facilitated major transformation in the telecommunication sector. The Indian mobile market is now one of the fastest growing markets in the world, adding around four million new subscribers every month.
The market has grown from less than 10 million in 2002 to 92 million subscribers in 2006 and is expected to reach 205 million by the end of FY08. The wireless operators are planning to spend $20 billion over a period of next three years expanding their networks. It is estimated that the number of towers would grow to 180,000 in FY08 from the 82,000 at present
Source- http://www.domain-b.com
