Reliance Communications again seeks PE buyers for tower unit

The Carlyle Group, Apax Partners and Blackstone Group are the private equity players that have been approached. Potential strategic investors include American Tower, Crown Castle International, Viom Networks and Etisalat.

Reliance Communications said in May that it had received several offers for Reliance Infratel, but apparently no formal offers have been made, largely due to the differences in valuation.

The company, which has seen its margins squeezed by low call prices and high operational costs in India's competitive mobile telecom market, has reported eight consecutive quarters of falling. Its stock is down 48% so far this year. Last year the company tried to sell a 26% stake in itself but there were no takers. Plans to spin off the tower unit in separate public listing failed, as did a proposed merger with the tower arm of a rival.

In June 2010, Carlyle, Blackstone and TPG were reported to be in talks over the potential spin out of Reliance Infratel. The proposed transaction - which apparently came to nothing - would have seen around 54,000 of Reliance's towers packaged with 32,000 from GTL Infrastructure into a special purpose vehicle. Shares would then have been issued to the parent companies and the private equity firms, followed by a public listing.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• South Asia
• Infrastructure
• Buyouts
• Restructuring
• The Carlyle Group
• The Blackstone Group
• TPG Capital
• Apax Partners Hong Kong