Idea Cellular: Muted Q2, lower tower valuations disappoint

The tower sale will help bring down debt

The Idea stock fell 3.6 per cent in trade on disappointing September quarter (Q2) results and the sale of standalone towers at lower-than-estimated valuations. The company announced on Monday it had sold its portfolio of about 10,000 towers housed in fully owned subsidiary Idea Cellular Infrastructure Services to ATC Telecom Infrastructure for an enterprise value of Rs 4,000 crore or $611 million. While this is in line with the company’s strategy of monetising its tower assets and will help bring down its net debt as of September at Rs 54,000 crore, the valuations of the deal are lower than the