Indus Towers

History

Indus Towers Limited was founded in November 2007 by Bharti Infratel, Vodafone Essar, and Idea Cellular, with the goal of merging their passive infrastructure assets across 16 telecom circles. It was incorporated with an objective to provide shared telecom infrastructure to telecom operators on a non-discriminatory basis. Bharti Infratel held a 42% stake in the company, with Vodafone Group Plc holding 42% and Vodafone Idea holding 11.15%. The remaining 4.85% stake was held by private equity firm Providence Equity.

Bharti Infratel merger

In 2017, reports suggested that Bharti Infratel was looking to acquire the 53% stake in Indus Towers, owned by Vodacom Group and Vodafone Idea. However, in July, the head of Vodafone stated that they were "actively considering" a float of their stake in Indus Towers. Vodafone went on to deliver a formal mandate to both Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley to finalize buyers.

Bharti Airtel (Bharti Infratel's parent company), Vodafone Group, and Vodafone Idea announced on 25 April 2018 that they had signed an agreement to merge Bharti Infratel with Indus Towers. Under the terms of the agreement, Bharti Infratel will transfer 1,565 of its own shares for each Indus Towers share valuing the latter at $10 billion. Other major shareholders in Indus Towers such as Idea Cellular and Providence Equity Partners would be provided an option to cash out. Prior to the merger, shareholding in Indus Towers was Bharti Infratel (42%), Vodafone Group (42%), Idea Cellular (11.15%) and Providence Equity Partners (4.85%).

The merger was originally planned to go through before October 2019. However, due to delays in approvals, it was postponed to December 2019 by when the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) was supposed to give its permission. Owing to further delays by the DoT and the National Company Law Tribunal the deadline was extended multiple times to 24 June 2020.