Idea Cellular announced the sale of its standalone tower business involving 9,900 towers to ATC Telecom Infrastructure for an enterprise value of INR 40 billion.

Vodafone earlier completed the sale of its standalone tower business to ATC for an enterprise value of INR 38.5 billion.

Vodafone and Idea Cellular are currently integrating their telecom business and are waiting for the final round of approvals.

Nearly 6,300 co-located tenancies of the two mobile operators on the combined standalone tower portfolio will collapse into single tenancies in two years without the payment of exit penalties.

Both Vodafone India and Idea as customers, and ATC as a vendor, have agreed to treat each other as long-term preferred partners, subject to existing arrangements.

With this both Idea Cellular and Vodafone India have now monetised the standalone tower assets for a total enterprise value of INR 78.5 billion, strengthening the financial position of the merged entity.