American Tower is reportedly set to announce a long-anticipated acquisition of a majority stake in Indian towerco Viom Networks next week. Two years in the making, the planned deal values the target at up to US$3.2bn.
American Tower (NYSE:AMT) is reportedly set to announce a long-anticipated acquisition of a majority stake in Indian towerco Viom Networks next week.
The multi-tier transaction, some two years in the making, values Viom at Rs200bn-Rs210bn (US$3.1bn-US$3.2bn), including its Rs60bn (US$925m) of debt, according to the Economic Times.
Tata Teleservices will reduce its 54% stake in the towerco to about 34%, while Srei Group, which has management control and an 18.5% holding, and smaller shareholders Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and Oman Investment Authority will exit entirely. IDFC Private Equity will reduce its stake to 3.2%, while private equity fund SBI-Macquarie will keep its 11% stake.
Conglomerate Srei will receive a premium for relinquishing management control of the company.
The parties expect to finalise documentation today and make a formal announcement next week.
Viom Networks, thought to be advised by Citigroup and Credit Suisse, and SBI-Macquarie have declined comment, while American Tower, Tata Teleservices, IDFC, GIC and Oman Investment Authority were not immediately available.
American Tower is expected to merge Viom into its existing local unit, ATC India, giving the combined entity some 54,000 towers.
Viom claims to be India’s largest independent telecoms infrastructure company with 92,000 tenancies on its more than 42,000 towers. The towerco considered an IPO after American Tower reportedly initially failed to meet its valuation expectations.
Boston-based American Tower has a global portfolio of about 97,000 owned or managed sites, most in its core US market. It is also present in Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru), Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda) and Germany.
In April, it agreed to buy 381 sites from Indian infrastructure firm KEC International for about Rs810m (US$13m).
