India’s Bharti Airtel (NSE:BHARTIARTL) has completed tower asset disposals in five of its 13 African markets, in transactions worth over US$1.3bn. The company said that it would use the proceeds to reduce debt.
In a statement to the Bombay Stock…
India’s Bharti Airtel (NSE:BHARTIARTL) has completed tower asset disposals in five of its 13 African markets, in transactions worth over US$1.3bn. The company said that it would use the proceeds to reduce debt.
In a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the company said that agreements in two of its markets had lapsed. In the remaining six markets the sale processes are ongoing and it hoped to have “finality in the coming few months”, subject to receiving approvals and certain conditions being met.
A spokesperson for the company was not immediately available for comment.
American Tower (NYSE:AMT) separately announced that it had closed its previously announced acquisition of 4,700 towers in Nigeria from Bharti. That deal, announced last year, had been valued at US$1.05bn.
Last month, Bharti announced that its US$400m sale of 3,100 towers in Tanzania and Chad to Helios Towers had “lapsed and therefore stand terminated”. Neither Bharti nor Helios would comment further, but a source familiar claimed “the deal is not dead”.
Bharti also agreed last year to sell 3,500 towers in six countries to Eaton Towers for US$1bn, and 1,100 towers in Zambia and Rwanda to IHS for a reported US$180m-US$200m.
Bhart is looking to reduce debt levels both at home and in Africa, where it acquired 17 markets from Zain in 2010. It had hoped to sell all of its 15,000 towers in one go, but has had to take a slower, country-by-country approach to meet regulatory demands. The parent company has deployed a similar tower strategy in India.
The company has separately announced that it is now the world’s third largest operator, with 303 million customers across 20 countries.
