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Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel have agreed to a merger that will create the second largest tower company in the world based on number of towers.
The merger between the two pan-Indian tower companies will create a new unit with over 163,000 towers operating across all 22 Indian telecoms circles, making it the largest towerco outside of China.
The new unit will be named Indus Towers Limited and will continue to be listed on the Indian Stock Exchanges, both companies said in an announcement.
Indus Towers is a joint venture that was founded in 2007 and offers passive infrastructure services to Indian telcos. Vodafone owns a 42% stake in Indus Towers, but will get somewhere between a 26.7% and a 29.4% stake in the new combined unit, depending on decisions to be made by its fellow shareholders in Indus.
Those shareholders are Idea Cellular – which is set to merge with Vodafone’s Indian...