This just in. A slew of international investors have picked up a minority stake for $1 billion in Bharti Infratel, the tower arm of Bharti Airtel, the company said in a statement today. The international investors are Temasek Holdings, The Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), Goldman Sachs, Macquarie, AIF Capital, Citigroup and India Equity Partners (IEP). Temasek is the largest investor.
The enterprise valuation has been agreed to be in the range of $10-12.5 Billion, and the final valuation, within this range, will be determined on the basis of Bharti Infratel’s actual operating performance in FY 2008-09, the release said.
Bharti Infratel owns close to 20,000 sites and holds approximately 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers, the recently announced joint venture between Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, which has over 70,000 sites. Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers will provide passive infrastructure services to all wireless telecom operators in India on a non-discriminatory basis.
Sharing of passive infrastructure results in capex and opex savings and higher capital efficiency for all wireless operators, enabling quicker roll out of services especially in rural areas, the release added.
Recently, Spice Communications decided to sell 875 towers to Quipo, part of the Srei Group, for Rs 500 crore, while Reliance Communications raised $337.5 million by selling 5 per cent stake in its tower arm RTIL.

Posted on 12/28/07, 4:40 PM
in: Deals, Private Equity
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