New reports claim Bharti Airtel aims to raise some $1.8 billion from the sale of its 15,000 towers in Africa.
The firm is seeking funds to clear its near US$10 billion of debt and has at the moment received expressions of interest from Helios, ATC, Eaton and IHS.
The reports indicate Airtel was earlier planning to spin off the towers as a separate firm to list it on the stock market or make a partial sale.
According to Cellular News, “In a research note, Kotak Institutional Equities warned though that a tower transaction of this scale has never happened in the African market; in addition, the fact that the tower assets have still not been demerged from most of the opcos in Africa makes any call on timing of such a deal very tricky.”