UK-based Vodafone Pls is in discussions to sell about 2.4 percent stake in Indus Towers, India’s largest tower company in a block deal. Vodafone Group and Bharti Airtel the promoters of Indus Towers currently hold 28.12 percent and 41.73 percent stake respectively in the company.
In a disclosure to the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the Vodafone Group Plc has stated that it holds 757.8 million shares in Indus Towers Limited, equivalent to a 28.1 percent shareholding. 190.7 million of these shares, equivalent to a 7.1percent shareholding, are currently pledged to Indus as part of the security arrangements entered into between Vodafone and Indus at the time of the merger of Indus Towers with Bharti Infratel.
Given that “Vodafone announces that it has launched a placing of 63.6 million primary shares in Indus through an accelerated book build offering. This represents 2.4percent of Indus’ outstanding share capital,” the company added in its LSE disclosure. Morgan Stanley remains the advisor to the deal.
Though not confirmed by Vodafone, it is likely that the company is in discussion with Bharti Airtel for the initial 4.7 percent stake sale according to news agency PTI. Vodafone Group has nonetheless confirmed that it is in talks to sell the initial stake and is looking to eventually looking to sell its entire 28.1 percent stake in Indus Towers.
The initial 5 percent stake is valued at over Rs 3,300 crore, and the proceeds of it are expected to be pumped into the Indian entity Vodafone Idea, which has been facing challenging times for the last few years. Especially as it is faced with intense competition and has lost millions of wireless subscribers to Reliance’s Jio and Bharti Airtel.
Meanwhile, Indus Towers’ portfolio of over 184,748 telecom towers making it one of the largest tower infrastructure providers in the country with a presence in all 22 telecom circles has seen a tumble in the stock market of nearly 14 percent intraday on February 24