| | By Subhankar Kundu @ Saturday, March 21, 2009 7:50 AM
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| | Vodafone Essar, the third largest mobile telephone firm in India, reportedly plans to hive off its tower infrastructure businesses into a separate company, Ortus Infratel and Holdings.
 Ortus will hold Vodafone Essar’s 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers, an independent tower company jointly floated by Vodafone Essar, Bharti Airtel and Idea cellular to provide shared telecom infrastructure to operators across the world on a nondiscriminatory basis.
Indus manages towers in 16 out of total 22 telecom circles in India.
The new company is also likely to hold Vodafone’s tower and infrastructure in those six circles where Indus doesn’t operate. Vodafone Essar has more than 6,000 towers in these six circles. The 42% stake in Indus gives Ortus another 38,000 towers. Ortus Infratel and Holdings Pvt Ltd could be worth several billion dollars, reports Economic Times. Vodafone Essar has already sought the Foreign Investment Promotion Board’s (FIPB) nod for the configuration of Ortus and is awaiting FIPB approval.
However, the company spokesperson refused to confirm the development.
Vodafone Essar’s major competitors in India have already created separate companies for tower and infrastructure businesses.
Apart from a 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers, Bharti Airtel has it’s a separate tower arm, Bharti Infratel with 30,000 towers. Reliance Communications (RCom) hived off its tower business into a separate entity,Reliance Infratel Limited. Wireless Tata Telecom Infrastructure (WTTI) holds Tata Teleservices' 14,000 towers.
WTTI recently merged with standalone tower company Quippo. The joint venture, still unnamed, has 18,000 towers. X
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