GTL Infra set to buy Aircel’s tower business for Rs8,500 crore
14 Jan 2010
GTL Infrastructure has emerged as the front runner for Aircel's cellular transmission towers, media reports said yesterday.
The deal, which expected to be signed as early as today, will be in the range of Rs8,500 crore, which works out to an average of Rs48.5 lakh a tower, the reports said.
Aircel, 74 per cent owned by Malaysia's Maxis Communications, has about 17,500 towers.
According to analysts, if the deal goes through, the combined entity will have 33,000 telecom towers, making it the second largest telecom tower company in India.
Indus Towers, jointly owned by Bharti, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular, is the largest tower company in the country with 100,000 towers, while the Tata-Quippo combine has about 26,000 sites.
Aircel CEO Gurdip Singh early this year said that the company is in the final stages of discussions with three players and will finalise a buyer in the next four to six weeks (See: Aircel ties up with Infosys for mobile applications; plans sale of tower business).
