Bharti Airtel to sell tower assets in Tanzania for $180 mn

Industry:    2016-03-22

Bharti Airtel is continuing to monetise its passive infrastructure assets in Africa. The company said on Monday it had entered into an agreement with American Tower Corporation (ATC), through its subsidiary, Airtel Tanzania, to sell 1,350 towers in the latter country. Analysts estimate the deal size to be $180 million. Bharti has approximately 14,000 towers in Africa, of which it has divested 8,300 for nearly $1.7 billion. ATC would acquire around 100 additional sites currently in development for an additional consideration. Airtel will be anchor tenant on the portfolio under a lease, with a 10-year initial term. Tanzania would be the ninth country where it has undertaken divestment of passive infrastructure. In all, Bharti would have raised close to $2 billion from the sale of tower assets alone. Bharti has already done one transaction with ATC for its towers in Nigeria. Commenting on the deal, Christian de Faria, managing director and chief executive (Africa), Bharti Airtel, said: “We are pleased to strengthen our partnership with American Tower in Africa. The proposed transaction is a continuation of our stated philosophy of divesting passive infrastructure assets and promoting sharing of towers to enhance operational efficiencies that will further the overall growth of telecom services. Airtel remains committed to Tanzania and will continue to invest in its operations and serve customers with world-class services.” Bharti has been divesting assets in Africa to bring down debt, Rs 66,000 crore at the end of June, 2015. The company has entered into a pact to sell all its operations in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone to Orange SA for $900 million. The company has also been restructuring and rationalising assets across the world. Earlier this year, Airtel Bangladesh and Robi Axiata Ltd decided to merge operations to create the second largest telco in that country. It is also planning to merge its wholly-owned Sri Lanka unit with Dialog Axiata.

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