RCom shareholders approve asset monetisation plan

Billionaire Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communication (RCom) has received shareholders' approval for monetisation of its assets with an overwhelming 99.91 per cent majority.

This paves way for the Anil Ambani company to sell its wireless assets to elder sibling Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries.

The shareholders of the company approved the monetisation of its assets, RCom said in a statement.

RCom's asset monetisation is proceeding on fast track to close by March 2018, subject to lenders' consents and other regulatory approvals.

Post monetisation, the debt and liabilities of the company will reduce by about Rs25,000 crore by pre-payment of debts and transfer of department of telecommunications' spectrum installments, it added.

RCom's continuing operations will comprise stable and profitable B2B focused businesses, including Indian and global enterprise, internet data centres and the largest private submarine cable network in the world.

These B2B businesses are stable, capital light and have sustained and predictable annuity revenues and profits, with immense growth potential amidst relatively low competitive intensity, it added.

Earlier on 28 December 2017, Mukesh Ambani stepped in to bail out younger brother Anil Ambani by acquiring spectrum, towers, optical fibre network and other wireless assets of the debt-laden Reliance Communications. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

RCom said the deal packs in 122.4 MHz of 4G Spectrum in the 800/900/1800/2100 MHz bands, over 43,000 towers, 1,78,000 kilometres of fibre and 248 media convergence nodes.

RJio emerged the successful bidder in an asset monetisation process for RCom assets mandated by the lenders, which appointed SBI Capital Markets to run a two-stage bidding process.

RJio, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), also announced the signing of agreement for the acquisition of specified assets of RCom and its affiliates.

RCom, which has a total debt of Rs45,000 crore, is expected to have made about Rs25,000 crore from the transaction, it had said.