American Tower is reportedly close to acquiring a 51% stake in Indian towerco Viom Networks for up to US$1bn, which it would then merge with its local unit ATC India.
The first stage of the two-part deal will see mobile operator Tata Teleservices reduce…
American Tower is reportedly close to acquiring a 51% stake in Indian towerco Viom Networks for up to US$1bn, which it would then merge with its local unit ATC India.
The first stage of the two-part deal will see mobile operator Tata Teleservices reduce its 54% stake in Viom to 26-30%, the Economic Times cited multiple sources involved in the deal as saying.
Conglomerate Srei, which owns about 18.5% of Viom, will reportedly sell its entire stake.
IDFC Private Equity and Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Fund intend to keep their minority stakes in the towerco, but it is not clear whether other private equity shareholders will do so, one source was cited as saying.
PE shareholders, which also include Oman Investment Fund and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), together own 27.5% of Viom.
The second stage of the deal will see American Tower merge its portfolio of about 12,000 Indian towers with Viom, which has about 42,000 towers, the report stated.
The US towerco will reportedly be the controlling shareholder of the merged entity, with its exact stake to be determined later in the negotiations.
American Tower would like to raise funds via a future IPO of the merged entity, at which point Tata would consider exiting entirely, one source was cited as saying.
American Tower and Viom were not immediately available for comment.
Early this year, Viom confirmed that it had mandated financial advisers, thought to be Credit Suisse and Citigroup, “to explore options for raising growth capital”.
Rumours of a sale or foreign listing of the towerco have circulated for several months. Other suitors, including PE firms Carlye and Providence and Malaysian telco Axiata, dropped out of the process, leaving American Tower with the largest and sole formal offer, the report stated.
Viom claims to be the largest independent telecoms infrastructure company in India with 92,000 tenancies on its more than 42,000 towers.
Most of American Tower’s operations are currently on the American continent. Last month, the acquisitive company agreed to buy more than 6,000 towers from Telecom Italia’s TIM Brasil in a R$3bn (US$1.2bn) deal and more than 4,800 towers in Nigeria from India-based telecoms group Bharti Airtel for about US$1.05bn. Also last month, American Tower closed its R$2.255bn (US$880m) purchase of Brazil’s BR Towers.
