India Telecom Infra Ltd (ITIL), a company jointly owned by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) and the TVS group firm TVS Interconnect Systems (TVSICS), is to be merged with Ascend Telecom Infrastructure Pvt Ltd.
The merger would be a cashless transaction, and post-merger, around Rs 400 crore would be infused for creation of additional infrastructure. Ascend Telecom, fully owned by New Silk Route, made its initial investment in the company in July 2007. Ascend and ITIL are both independent telecom tower operators and caters to mobile operators including Idea Cellular, BSNL, Vodafone, Tata Teleservices, Aircel, amongst others.
“After the merger, we have plans to add another 1,500 towers with an investment of Rs 300-400 crore,” said Vivek Sett, partner, New Silk Route. After the merger, the average tenancy ratio of the company would be over 1.6x. The proposed investment would be funded through equity and debt, he added.
The companies will be filing a scheme of amalgamation with the High Courts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu to merge ITIL into Ascend after receiving approvals from all their stakeholders.
The proposed merger would increase the company's revenue from around Rs 60 crore reported last fiscal year, to around Rs 160 crore in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2011, he said.
Parag Saxena, founding general partner and CEO of New Silk Route, said, “Over the last decade, voice telephony in India has grown at a phenomenal pace and we are now at the cusp of another revolution in data usage with tablets, netbooks and smartphones as the key enablers. We believe that telecom infrastructure will be the backbone of this growth and are excited to partner with IL&FS and the TVS group to capitalise on this opportunity.”
The merger of ITIL and Ascend is synergistic and provides all the stakeholders of both companies enormous benefits in terms of an enlarged management team, increased scale, a pan-India footprint, and significant operational efficiencies, said R Haresh, chairman of TVSICS.
