Reliance Communications set to announce tower stake sale, valued at Rs 22,000 crore: Sources

NEW DELHI: Reliance Communications % is set to sell its stake in tower unit Reliance Infratel in a deal which values the subsidiary at around Rs 22,000 crore and which will be announced within this week, people familiar with the matter said.

The sale of RCom's stake in Reliance Infratel to a private equity player would likely mark the complete exit of the fourth largest telecom services provider by customers from the telecom tower business in India.

"The deal will be announced within a couple of days, and will value Infratel at around Rs 22,000 crore," one of the people said.

ET had reported back in September that the Anil Ambani-owned company was in talks in US-based Farallon Capital and Tillman Capital - for the sale and that the due diligence process was going on.

Some bidders had evinced interest to buy out RCom's entire stake, while the two others wanted 51%. RCom insiders revealed that the company would prefer to completely exit the tower business as it needs the funds to reduce its debt of over Rs 38,000 crore.

Standard Chartered and SBI Capital Markets are managing the stake sale process.

The deal, once announced, would be the second such development in the tower industry after American Tower Corporation bought controlling stake in Viom Networks in October.

While RCom owns 96% of Reliance Infratel, minority and institutional investors such as George Soros' Quantum (M), NSR Partners, Galleon, HSBC Daisy Investment (Mauritius), Drawbridge Towers, Investment Partners B (Mauritius), hold the rest.

RCom aims to reduce its massive debt by trying to sell its tower and overseas business units, as well as monetise its DTH arm and land holdings. It expects to also raise some funds from trading and sharing its airwaves with Reliance Jio Infocomm

Reliance Infratel, with some 45,000 towers and over 1,20,000 km of intra- and inter-circle fibre network, trails Indus Towers, ATC-Viom and Bharti Infratel by number of towers.

Reliance Communications (RCOM)