Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers planning to merge into a single telecom tower company

Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers are planning to merge their businesses to form a single tower company. The merged entity will have 240,000 towers. Earlier, Bharti Infratel was planning to acquire a controlling stake in Indus Towers and make the latter a subsidiary. According to the earlier plan, Bharti Infratel was to acquire the stake that it did not own in Indus Towers in an all-cash transaction and later sell the combined business to external investors. The decision to merge the two tower companies comes in the wake of Bharti Airtel’s announcement that it would list its Africa business to raise money. The new arrangement will also give freedom to each of the stakeholders of the merged tower entity to sell their stakes at their convenience.