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RCom to lease 'as many towers as possible' to Reliance Jio [Financial Express (India)](Financial Express (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Reliance Communications (RCom), India's third-largest telecom company by subscribers, said on Monday it is in advanced stages of discussions to lease out "as many towers as possible" to Mukesh Ambani's telecom firm Reliance Jio Infocomm. "Our talks with Reliance Jio are progressing very well. We are in discussions to rent out as many towers as possible to fulfill their requirement," chief executive officer-wireless business, Gurdeep Singh, said in a conference call with analysts. Singh did not give further details regarding the number of towers or the cost at which the towers would be leased out. RCom's tower subsidiary Reliance Infratel has 45,000 towers currently. It has an average tenancy ratio, or tenants per tower, of 1.67. Reliance Jio Infocomm, which is the only company with nationwide 4G spectrum, is expected to roll out its 4G services this year. The company is in talks with RCom and others for partnerships ahead of rollout. Last month, Anil Ambani promoted-RCom signed a R1,200-crore infrastructure sharing pact with Reliance Jio wherein the latter would use its 120,000-km optic fibre for carrying inter-city data traffic. RCom, which has debt of R32,168 crore as on March 31, has been looking for ways to bring down its debt burden by leasing infrastructure and also selling stake in some of its ventures. However, earlier attempts to sell a stake in its tower arm Reliance Infratel to another tower firm GTL fell through. Currently, RCom is also in talks to sell stake in its subsidiary Reliance Globalcom. Talks have been initiated with private equity firm Samena Capital and its consortium partners for the deal and are expected to be completed by May end. RCom also signed a roaming agreement with telecom carrier Aircel under which the companies will share towers for better network for 2G GSM services in eight circles. On Friday, RCom reported a near three-fold increase in net profit sequentially to R303 crore for the January-March quarter over the R105 crore in the previous quarter. RCom, which is also the most leveraged in the Indian telecom space, expects to incur a capital expenditure of R1,500 crore during FY14, slightly lower than its capital expenditure of R1,550 crore during FY13. RCom scrip closed down 4.8% to R105.75 on Monday on Bombay Stock Exchange. The shares have gained 82% of their value since April 2, 2013, when the company signed a deal with Reliance Jio. Copyright 2013 The Indian Express Online Media Pvt. Ltd., distributed by Contify.com Credit: fe Bureau (c) 2013 The Indian Express Online Media Pvt. Ltd., distributed by Contify.com |