Bharti Airtel is planning to sell its 4,000 telecom towers in Nigeria for more than $1 billion by end-September 2014. The companies reportedly involved in this deal are American Tower Company (ATC) and IHS Towers. The proceeds of the sale will be used to pare a part of the company’s debt, which stood at Rs 712.5 billion as of end-June 2014.
Earlier in July 2014, Bharti Airtel sold its 3,100 towers to Helios Tower Company for an undisclosed amount. Airtel owns 15,000 telecom towers across 17 countries in Africa. It decided to sell them to independent tower companies after it was unable to create a joint venture tower company with other telecom operators.
Most of the company’s current debt can be attributed to the purchase of its Zain Africa?s business. Meanwhile, the company has been facing deteriorating operational performance in Africa. In the past one year however, the company has successfully converted its entire foreign currency debt, taken on to purchase the African operations, into long-term bonds, thus reducing its debt-servicing liabilities.
