NYSE-listed American Tower Corporation (ATC) is set to get the final approval for acquiring the telecom tower assets from Idea Cellular.
In November 2017, ATC had announced its intention to acquire 20,135 telecom towers held by Vodafone India and Idea Cellular for about ₹7,850 crore ($1.2 billion). ATC had earlier announced that it had completed the acquisition of Vodafone India's telecom towers, totalling 10,200 sites, in a cash deal worth ₹3,850 crore. But the deal with Idea Cellular could not be completed as the Department of Telecom had not given its approval.
ATC acquired the tower assets through its majority-owned Indian subsidiary ATC Telecom Infrastructure Pvt Ltd. The new towers will complement ATC’s existing footprint, especially in enabling mobile operators roll out 4G services.
On March 20, 2017, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular announced plans to merge their mobile operations to create the largest operator in the country.
As part of this merger, the two operators have decided to monetise their tower infrastructure in a bid to focus on core mobile operations.
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