RCom appoints JP Morgan for stake sale

Anil Ambani-led company Reliance Communications appointed JP Morgan as the merchant banker on Monday to look for strategic buyers for its wholly-owned tower subsidiary Reliance Telecom Infrastructure Ltd.

Morgan would shortlist the best suitor out of the total seven strategic and financial investors, currently tipped to be interested in the stake of of RTIL.

The company is looking at selling 5-10 per cent stake to one or two investors and expects to rake in $500 million.

However, a RCom spokesperson declined to comment on the development. Sources added that J P Morgan would inform about the situation on the stake sale within 10 days and a detailed meeting between J P Morgan and the company officials is expected on June 7.

Recently, RCom demerged its passive

infrastructure assets like Towers, in order to make its balance sheet asset light and convert Towers from a cost head to a revenue stream.

The move that would shave off close to 1.5 per cent from the operating expenditure of the parent, as per the estimation of the company.

The company, which currently owns over 14,000 Towers, is in the process of adding another 20,000 this fiscal across the country.

The new Towers planned by RCom are designed to host active electronics for 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 4G as well as broadcast services.

The company has signed infrastructure sharing agreements with all leading operators, including BSNL, Bharti, Hutch, Idea, Spice Telecom and Aircel.