Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has kicked off a process to sell 10,000 telecom towers to meet targets laid out by the Centre as part of its national monetisation pipeline (NMP), people aware of the development told ET.
The state-owned telecom services provider has pegged the enterprise value of the towers to be sold at ₹4,000 crore and engaged KPMG as a financial advisor to administer the sale, they said.
BSNL, which provides telecom services in every part of the country except Mumbai and Delhi, owns 68,000 telecom towers. It is selling only those towers that have co-location arrangements with third-party telecom service providers such as Reliance Jio and Airtel, people cited above said. BSNL did not comment when contacted. KPMG said it would not comment on company matters.
Industry watchers believe the tower sale could attract interest from Brookfield-owned Data Infrastructure Trust, which acquired over 130,000 towers of Reliance Jio in 2019, and Indus Towers, which is partly owned by Airtel.
Data Infrastructure Trust and Indus Towers did not respond to ET’s queries until press time Tuesday.
Tower portfolio of BSNL is said to be one of the best in the country as nearly 70% of its towers are fiberised and ready for deployment for 4G and 5G services.
As part of NMP targets, BSNL has to sell 13,567 towers by financial year 2025 and MTNL, which operates in Delhi and Mumbai, has to sell 1,350 towers. In all, the two state-owned telcos will sell 14,917 towers in a phased manner.
Tower infrastructure sharing is seen as a means of cost optimisation for telecom companies. Hence, the sector has seen significant consolidation and the emergence of independent telecom tower companies such as American Tower Corporation (ATC), which provides tower infrastructure support to telcos.
ATC bought out Tata Teleservices’ nearly 13% residual stake in ATC Telecom Infrastructure in September 2019 for ₹2,500 crore in an all-cash deal. This valued the company at ₹19,000 crore. ATC had a tower portfolio of 80,000 towers at the time, pegging the valuation per tower at around ₹24 lakh.
The Centre is keen to promote telephony services through BSNL though it has suffered losses. It also planning the merger of BSNL with Bharat Broadband Network. The two firms will collectively provide deeper rural connectivity and increase broadband penetration.
In July, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced a Rs 1.64 lakh-crore revival package for BSNL, which comprises conversion of spectrum dues to equity, capex support, debt restructure with sovereign guarantee backing, and viability gap funding for rural wireline operations.
BSNL posted a loss of Rs 7,441 crore on revenues of Rs. 18,595 crore in 2020-21.
