The deal marks the end of American Tower’s strategic review of its Indian operation.
According to data from Capacity’s sister publication TowerXchange, American Tower owns 77,172 in India.
DIT houses Brookfield’s other telecom tower and related infrastructure investments in India, namely Summit Digitel, Crest Digitel and the newly launched Roam Digitel.
Summit Digitel owns 177,000 towers according to the latest data from TowerXchange.
If combined with Summit Digitel, the 77,172 tower swing makes Summit Digtiel the second largest towerco in the world, behind China Tower and leapfrogging Indian rival Indus Towers, which remains the third largest towerco globally.
“We look forward to expanding and enhancing our existing telecom tower portfolio in India, which enables a broader array of solutions for our customers and partners," said Arpit Agrawal, Brookfield’s managing director, head of infrastructure, India & Middle East.
American Tower meanwhile will drop from second to fourth in terms of tower count.
American Tower Asia Pacific will still own towers in Bangladesh and The Philippines. It has been active in India for 17 years.
The anchor tenant on the majority of American Tower’s sites is Vodafone Idea, which has had significant financial trouble in recent years, resulting in the government converting licence fees into equity.
At one point, it was mooted that American Tower itself could convert unpaid rent for space on its towers into equity in Vodafone Idea.
American Tower will retain the full economic benefit associated with the optionally converted debentures issued by Vodafone Idea and will be entitled to receive future payments related to existing ATC India receivables.
American tower will use the proceeds of the transaction to repay other debt.
Citi is serving as lead financial advisor and CDX Advisors is serving as financial advisor to American Tower. Talwar Thakore & Associates (TT&A) is serving as principal legal advisor to American Tower.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2024.
