Brookfield Asset Management is to acquire American Tower Corp’s (ATC) loss-making Indian operations for $2.5bn, becoming one of the country’s largest operator of telecom towers in the process, according to a report by Reuters.
The acquisition, which is the third and largest telecom related deal made by Canada-based Brookfield in India over the past past four years, sees ATC exit the country after nearly 17 years.
Brookfield’s ‘anchor’ client in India will be Reliance Industries’ Jio, which competes with Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel in the Indian telecoms market, the world’s second-largest by number of subscribers.
Airtel is the anchor client of Indus Towers, the current market leader with roughly 193,000 towers. Brookfield, meanwhile has around 157,000 towers and ATC operates some 77,000 towers.
