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Monday, September 8, 2014

Airtel to sell and lease back over 3500 towers to Eaton in 6 countries under a 10 ... - Financial Express

fe Bureau | New Delhi | Updated: Sep 08 2014, 12:27 IST

Sep 08 2014, 12:27 IST

The agreements with Eaton Towers will allow Airtel to focus on its core business and customers.

SummaryAirtel to sell and lease back over 3,500 towers to Eaton in 6 countries under a 10-year contract.

Telecom major Bharti Airtel , which has operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa through its subsidiary company Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV, and Eaton Towers, a leading independent telecoms tower company in Africa, today announced an agreement for the divestment of over 3,500 telecoms towers from Airtel to Eaton Towers.

The agreement follows Airtel's and Eaton Towers' strategies to drive cost efficiencies throughout the industry via the use of shared passive infrastructure.

As per the deal, Airtel will sell and lease back over 3500 towers to Eaton in six countries across its African operations under a 10-year contract.

Eaton Towers� coverage in Africa now expands to seven countries with over 5000 towers.

The agreements will allow Airtel to focus on its core business and customers, enable it to deleverage through debt reduction, and will significantly reduce its on-going capital expenditure on passive infrastructure.

For Eaton Towers, the acquisition is a major step towards the scale needed to provide shared telecoms infrastructure solutions, with its customers benefiting from lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and capacity and improved quality of service.

The agreements are subject to statutory and regulatory approvals in the respective countries.

Commenting on the development, Manoj Kohli, Chairman, Bharti Airtel International Netherlands BV (BAIN), said: "The agreement with Eaton Towers is an extension of this philosophy and will lead to far superior utilisation of passive infrastructure and help drive the proliferation of affordable mobile services across Africa.�

Alan Harper, CEO of Eaton Towers added: "This is a transformational deal which gives Eaton Towers the most diversified tower portfolio across Africa. We are proud to be chosen by Airtel as their key partner in these 6 countries.�