Bharti sells part of African tower biz for nearly $1bn Bharti Airtel on Wednesday announced the sale of nearly 20% of its 15,000-strong tower infrastructure in Africa. The move is aimed at reducing the over $10-billion debt of the company. Though Bharti did not disclose the size of the deal, market analysts peg it at a little lower than $1 billion. The Sunil Mittal-led company is expected to continue to engage in further sale of its tower infrastructure to cut debt and work out solutions to make its struggling, loss-making African operations profitable. The company said that its subsidiary, Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV (BAIN), and Helios Towers Africa (HTA) have signed a deal for around 3,100 telecom towers spread across four of the 17 African nations where the company operates. Airtel will have full access to towers from HTA, an independent towers com pany in Africa, under a longterm lease contract. The agreement between the companies also envisages that tower operations-related personnel will be transferred from Airtel to HTA. “The agreements, while allowing Airtel to focus on its core business and customers, would also enable it to de-leverage through debt reduction, and will significantly reduce its ongoing capital expenditure on passive infrastructure,” the Indian telecom major said. Bharti’s African operations have been in losses and the company has around 86 million subscribers in the region. Bharti had entered the region by acquiring Zain’s operations in 2010 and the buyout is the major reason behind the company’s fat debt. “Airtel pioneered the concept of a separate tower entity to promote infrastructure sharing in India and this agreement is a continuation of that philosophy. It is an important step towards the consolidation of tower assets across Africa that will drive industry-wide cost efficiencies through infrastructure sharing,” Manoj Kohli, chairman of BAIN, said. “The agreement will further help in accelerating the growth of telecom services in the continent and at the same time benefit the environment by avoiding duplication of infrastructure.” HTA acquires, builds and manages telecom infrastructure, leasing it to operators in Africa. It is operational since 2009 and investors in the company include Helios Investment Partners, Quantum Strategic Partners, Albright Capital Management, RIT Capital Partners and the International Finance Corporation.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 11:24:02 +0000