Indian cellco Vodafone Essar has delayed plans to sell its 7000 telecom towers because of the valuation issues surrounding the JV, according to the Economic Times citing a company executive. Earlier this week, it was reported that Indian tower companies…
Indian cellco Vodafone Essar has delayed plans to sell its 7000 telecom towers because of the valuation issues surrounding the JV, according to the Economic Times citing a company executive.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Indian tower companies GTL Infrastructure and Viom Networks had submitted bids to acquire the towers.
A source close to the deal confirmed to TelecomFinance that GTL is interested in the towers and that it has hired Standard Chartered Bank to advise it on a potential deal.
According to Livemint.com, Viom is being advised by Barclays Capital.
But the potential is now reportedly on hold after Vodafone criticised plans by Essar to carry out a reverse listing of its wholly-owned telecom business because it may affect the value of their JV.
Essar is looking to merge unlisted Essar Telecommunications (which owns an 11% stake in Vodafone Essar) with listed financial group India Securities (ISL), in order to assess the value of its stake in Vodafone Essar.
However, the British telco added that such a reverse listing could be misinterpreted as a fair market value of Vodafone Essar, adding that it did not wish for a company in which it holds a majority interest to become the subject of a false market.
GTL and VIOM have reportedly been told that deal talks would start again once a resolution is reached on the valuation matter, which may take several months.
According to the Economic Times, Vodafone Essar is looking to sell some towers in order to partly fund its 3G rollout in the country.
