American Tower buys Xcel for Rs 800-850 cr

Nasdaq-listed American Tower Corporation (ATC) has acquired the Mumbai-based independent tower company, Xcel Telecom, founded by former BPL Mobile chief executive officer, Sandip Basu, for an undisclosed sum.

Industry analysts had put an enterprise valuation of around Rs 800-850 crore for Xcel Telecom, which owns and operates around 1,700 towers in the country.

ATC had entered into an agreement with Q Investments, an affiliate of Horse-Shoe Capital, Mauritius, which had a major stake in the company.

“India is one of the fastest growing telecom markets, with the tower market seeing record growth. We have always maintained that ATC will pursue acquisition opportunities if the right portfolio of towers is available upon fair and reasonable terms,” said ATC’s Executive Vice President and President (Asia), Amit Sharma.

The acquisition would help ATC create a leading independent tower company with a combined portfolio of 2,000 tower sites in 15 telecom circles, a team of 240 employees and relationships with all leading wireless operators in India, it said.

According to XCel Telecom Director Pranav Parikh: “This represents a significant milestone for Xcel and is beneficial to all its stakeholders. Xcel will benefit from ATC’s commitment and expertise in managing and growing such businesses globally.”

Xcel Telecom was set up in 2006 by Sandip Basu with $500 million funding commitment from Texas-based Q Investments.

The industry estimates that the country needs around 300,000 towers by 2011 to support the massive subscriber addition of around nine million every month.