Copying and distributing are prohibited without permission of the publisher
Reliance and GTL end $9bn tower deal
07 September 2010
Plans for Reliance to sell its phone towers to GTL have been dropped after the two companies failed to agree
Read more:
Reliance
GTL
towers
India
Reliance Infratel
Etisalat
Reliance Communications has ended its $9 billion deal to offload its 50,000 tower assets in India to GTL Infrastructure, apparently because of disagreements over price. The company is now in talks with other strategic and financial investors to pursue a similar transaction aimed at significant reduction in its debt.
The deal with GTL, which would have reduced the mobile operator’s net debt significantly, would have more than doubled GTL’s number of transmission towers and created a company with an estimated value of $11 billion. The purchase would also have increased GTL’s number of transmission towers to nearly 80,000 from 33,000.
Reliance, which has net debt of $7 billion, is in discussions to sell a 26% stake in itself to Etisalat. The company will now raise capital through an initial public offering of the tower unit, Reliance Infratel, or through a share placement. GTB