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India's Bharti Airtel to sell 3,500 telecom towers in Africa to Eaton Towers [IntelliNews - Weekly Reports](IntelliNews - Weekly Reports Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) India-based telecoms group Bharti Airtel will sell and lease back more than 3,500 telecoms towers in 6 African countries to telecom infrastructure company Eaton Towers under a 10-year contract, the two companies said in a joint statement. Neither the price of the deal nor the names of the six countries were disclosed. The transaction, which is subject to statutory and regulatory approvals in the respective countries, is in line with Airtel's strategy to sell its all 15,000 towers across 17 African countries, estimated at up to USD 3bn. In July, Airtel agreed to sell 3,100 telecom towers in 4, also unnamed, African countries to Helios Towers Africa (HTA). The Indian company plans to use the proceeds from the sales to cut debt and lower capital expenditure on passive infrastructure, while focusing more on its core business and customers. For private equity-backed Eaton Towers, the acquisition is a major step towards the scale needed to provide shared telecoms infrastructure solutions, with its customers benefiting from lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and capacity and improved quality of service, the statement reads. At present, Eaton Towers owns and operates towers in Ghana, Uganda and South Africa for customers such as Airtel, MTN, Orange, Tigo, Vodacom and Vodafone. The deal will expand Eaton Towers' coverage to 7 countries with over 5,000 towers. Operational since 2010, Eaton Towers is majority owned by the sixth global emerging markets private equity fund of Capital Group Private Markets. It was founded by Sanjiv Ahuja, a former CEO of Orange Group, Alan Harper, a former strategy director at Vodafone, and Terry Rhodes, a co-founder of Celtel. There is a wider shift in Africa towards co-location and leasing mobile communications towers from independent tower operators, as the maintenance of towers is typically more expensive than in other regions because of security costs and electricity shortages. Last week, South Africa-based telecoms group MTN agreed to transfer the operation of its 9,151 mobile network towers in Nigeria to Nigeria-based mobile infrastructure company IHS Holding. Last month, UAE's state-owned telecoms group Etisalat agreed to sell and lease back its 2,136 towers in Nigeria to IHS. Media reports have suggested that France's Orange is in talks to sell a number of towers in Sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt. (c) 2014 Emerging Markets Direct Media Holdings LLC Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |