Bharti Infratel Limited was an Indian

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

infrastructure company that provided telecom infrastructure such as telecom towers, fiber networks and other related infrastructure. Headquartered in

Gurugram Gurgaon (), officially named Gurugram (), is a satellite city of Delhi and administrative headquarters of Gurgaon district, located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest o ...

Haryana Haryana () is a States and union territories of India, state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out after the linguistic reorganisation of Punjab, India, Punjab on 1 November 1966. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with les ...

, the company was established by

Bharti Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational Telecommunications in India, telecommunications company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. ...

in July 2007 by spinning-off its mobile towers to a new wholly-owned

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

. Bharti Infratel was the first Indian company to start a tower infrastructure sharing business. It was India's largest consolidated tower infrastructure company, directly owning 95,372 towers as on 31 March 2020. Bharti Infratel was merged with

Indus Towers Indus Towers Limited is an Indian telecommunications infrastructure company offering passive infrastructure services to mobile network operators and other wireless services providers. Headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, Indus Towers was inco ...

on 19 November 2020. Bharti Airtel now holds a 36.73% stake in Indus Towers.

History

On 23 January 2007,

announced that it would

spin-off Spin-off, Spin Off, Spin-Off, or Spinoff may refer to: Entertainment and media *Spinoff (media), a media work derived from an existing work *''The Spinoff'', a New Zealand current affairs magazine * ''Spin Off'' (Canadian game show), a 2013 Canad ...

its mobile towers to a new wholly-owned

called Bharti Infratel Limited. Bharti Infratel Limited was incorporated in July 2007. Bharti Infratel initiated an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

(IPO) in December 2012 raising US$764 million. The IPO was subscribed 1.3 times and was the largest IPO in India since

Coal India Coal India Limited (CIL) is an Indian public sector undertaking and the largest government-owned coal producer in the world. Headquartered in Kolkata, it is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Coal, Government of India. It acco ...

in October 2010. Bharti Infratel was listed on the

Bombay Stock Exchange BSE Limited, also known as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is an Indian stock exchange based in Mumbai. It is the 6th largest stock exchange in the world by total market capitalization, exceeding $5 trillion in May 2024. Established with t ...

and the National Stock Exchange on 28 December 2012. The company used to be in the

NIFTY 50 The NIFTY 50 is an Indian stock market index that represents the Capitalization-weighted index#Free-float weighting, float-weighted average of 50 of the largest Indian companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India, National Stock E ...

index Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on the Halo Array in the ...

. In September 2020, Divi's Laboratories and

SBI Life Insurance Company SBI Life Insurance Company Limited is an Indian life insurance company. It was started as a joint venture between State Bank of India (SBI) and French financial institution BNP Paribas Cardif. In 2007, CRISIL Limited, a subsidiary of global r ...

replaced Bharti Infratel and

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) (formerly Zee Telefilms) is an Indian media conglomerate. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has interests in television, print, internet, film, and businesses related to mobile content, and operates 45 c ...

on the index.

Merger with Indus Towers

was incorporated in November 2007 as an Indian telecommunications infrastructure company offering passive infrastructure services to telecom operators and other wireless services providers such as broadband service providers. Bharti Infratel held a 42% stake in the company, with

Vodafone Group Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and ...

holding 42% and Vodafone Idea holding 11.15%. The remaining 4.85% stake was held by private equity firm

Providence Equity Providence Equity Partners L.L.C. is a specialist private equity investment firm focused on media, communications, education, and technology investments across North America and Europe. The firm specializes in growth-oriented private equity inves ...

. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Group, and Vodafone Idea announced on 25 April 2018 that they had signed an agreement to

merge Merge, merging, or merger may refer to: Concepts * Merge (traffic), the reduction of the number of lanes on a road * Merge (linguistics), a basic syntactic operation in generative syntax in the Minimalist Program * Merger (politics), the comb ...

Bharti Infratel with Indus Towers. The merger was originally planned to go through before October 2019. However, due to delays in approvals, it was postponed to December 2019 by when the

Department of Telecommunications The Department of Telecommunications, abbreviated to DoT, is a department of the Ministry of Communications of the executive branch of the Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union ...

(DoT) was supposed to give its permission. Owing to further delays by the DoT and the

National Company Law Tribunal The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is a quasi-judicial body in India that adjudicates issues relating to Indian companies. The tribunal, established under the Companies Act 2013, was constituted on 1 June 2016 by the government of India a ...

, the deadline was extended multiple times to 24 June 2020. The DoT approved the merger on 21 February 2020. The merger received

foreign direct investment A foreign direct investment (FDI) is an ownership stake in a company, made by a foreign investor, company, or government from another country. More specifically, it describes a controlling ownership an asset in one country by an entity based i ...

approval and was due to be completed by 31 August. The merger was approved by Bharti Infratel's board on 1 September, and by Vodafone Group in October 2020. The merger was completed on 19 November 2020. Vodafone Idea received as compensation for its 11.15% stake. Post-merger, Bharti Airtel received a 36.73% stake in the merged entity and Vodafone Group held a 28.12% stake. The remaining shares are held by private equity firm Providence Equity Partners (3.1%) and public shares (35.2%). The merger made Indus Towers the second largest telecom tower infrastructure operator in the world.

References

{{Bharti Enterprises 2007 establishments in Haryana Telecommunications companies of India Indian companies established in 2007 Bharti Airtel Companies based in Gurgaon Companies formerly listed on the National Stock Exchange of India Companies formerly listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange Indian companies disestablished in 2020 Bharti Enterprises