Voda-Idea in talks to sell Indus Tower stake, assets for 20k cr

The country’s largest telecom operator plans to use the funds for lowering its debt, which stood at Rs 1,23,660 crore at the end of 2018.

“Vodafone Idea has received combined valuation of around Rs 20,000 crore for mobile towers and optical fibre assets that it is planning to sell. Discussions have started around it,” said an industry source. It had earlier announced plan to sell 11.15 pc stake held by the Aditya Birla Group in Indus Towers as well as 1.56 lakh km of optical fibre assets. “Indus stake is worth about Rs 50 billion (Rs 5,000 cr) today. We have 156,000 km of fibre. We have not given any guidance on monetisable value,” a spokesperson said. It is also planning to raise Rs 25,000 cr via a rights issue to fund its capital expenditure and pare debt. The promoter shareholders -- Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group -- have reiterated to the board they intend to contribute up to Rs 11,000 cr and Rs 7,250 cr, respectively, as part of the rights issue. They have also said in case the rights issue is under-subscribed, each of the promoter shareholders reserves the right to subscribe to part or whole of the unsubscribed portion.