Bharti Airtel-owned Bharti Hexacom has put on hold its deal to sell 3,400 towers for ₹1,134 crore to Indus Towers, following an intervention by state-owned Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd, which holds a 15% stake in the company.
TCIL asked the company to start a fresh process that meets its requirements as a public sector undertaking, Bharti Hexacom said in an exchange filing late on Wednesday.
“The management and the Board of Bharti Hexacom remain convinced about the business logic and merit of the proposal. However, in keeping with the highest standards of corporate governance and transparency, it has been agreed to put the current proposal in abeyance and undertake a fresh exercise in consultation with TCIL,” the company said in the filing.
“A PSU has to exercise abundant caution while selling its assets… It has to follow due process involving valuation, inviting offers and approval with the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management while selling assets. That could be the reason TCIL intervened in the transaction,” said Shiju PV, a senior partner at IndiaLaw LLP.
According to Shiju, failure to follow such a process may lead to allegations and future investigations.
However, analysts said Hexacom would not want to sell its tower assets via a bidding process because Indus Towers is also a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel and companies outside Airtel’s ownership may express their interest in purchasing the towers.
Kept in abeyance
Bharti Airtel and Bharti Hexacom finalised a deal with Indus Towers in February to transfer 16,100 telecom towers through a slump sale. Bharti Airtel was to sell about 12,700 towers worth ₹2,174.6 crore, while Bharti Hexacom was to sell 3,400 towers for ₹1,134.1 crore. Indus Towers has completed the tower sale deal with Bharti Airtel.
Indus Towers informed the exchanges that the sale/transfer of passive infrastructure business undertaking by Bharti Hexacom to the company has been kept in abeyance.
Indus Towers operated a portfolio of 234,643 towers and 386,819 co-locations as of December 2024. The company competes with Brookfield-owned Altius, which has over 257,000 towers.
TCIL, established in 1978, is an engineering and consultancy firm focused on delivering Indian expertise in telecommunications and information technology. Its strengths lie in switching, transmission, cellular services, rural telecom, optical fibre backbone networks, IT, and networking solutions.
In 1995, the government partnered with Mobile Telecommunications Company (Kuwait) and Shyam Telecom Ltd through TCIL to create a joint venture named Hexacom India, aimed at providing mobile services in Rajasthan and the Northeast. The company was renamed Bharti Hexacom in 2004 after Airtel acquired a majority stake.
