Amid rival operators offloading their tower infrastructure to independent firms, Aircel looks set to buy back the towers that it sold to GTL Infrastructure 4 years ago.
The Indian operator, owned by Malaysian firm Maxis, has reportedly arranged loans of almost $1 billion in order to reacquire the infrastructure. The deal is motivated by penalties incurred by Aircel’s failure to meet the conditions of its original agreement with GTL.
Aircel originally pledged to lease 20,000 sites back from GTL but failed to hit this target after its expansion slowed following investigations into India’s 2G spectrum auctions. Price wars were also a factor.
GTL is reportedly aiming not just to sell back Aircel’s 17,000 towers, but to push its own 15,000 masts onto the operator as well.
