The American Tower Company (ATC) has entered into an agreement to acquire the entire issued share capital of Essar Telecom Infrastructure Private Limited (ETIPL) through its Singaporean subsidiary, Transcend Infrastructure, for Rs 20 billion.

The American Tower Company (ATC) has entered into an agreement to acquire the entire issued share capital of Essar Telecom Infrastructure Private Limited (ETIPL) through its Singaporean subsidiary, Transcend Infrastructure, for Rs 20 billion. The USbased company has effectively paid about Rs 4.5 million per tower for ETIPL’s 4,450 towers. This is marginally lower than what GTL Infrastructure reportedly paid for acquiring Aircel’s tower business (Rs 4.8 million per tower). The acquisition will make ATC the third largest independent tower company in the country with 6,950 towers. The transaction is subject to certain pre-completion requirements and is expected to be completed by mid2010. Barclays Capital is the financial adviser to Essar for this deal.