Bharti Airtel to sell phone masts in Tanzania, Malawi

Dar es Salaam. Bharti’s Airtel will sell its masts in Tanzania to Helios Towers, as the India-based global telecommunications company seeks to dispose of its mobile phone towers, news agencies reported yesterday

According to Reuters, the firm, which operates in 20 countries in Asia and Africa will sell masts in Tanzania to Helios Towers, while units in Malawi will go to Eaton Towers.

Quoting a person who is privy to the deal but who preferred anonymity, Reuters said the Tanzania sale will include about 1,000 towers, said the source, who declined to be identified because the deal has not been concluded.

Mobile operators such as India’s Bharti have been selling masts to specialist tower firms and leasing them back to cut maintenance costs on a continent with poor access to electricity and shoddy roads.

Bharti has said it would sell 3,500 towers across six African countries to Eaton, and 3,100 masts in four countries to Helios. It has not given details on the countries involved.

Eaton Chief Executive Alan Harper declined to comment on the details of the sales, including the countries involved. Helios and Bharti both declined to comment. “They’ve been signed, but the deals haven’t closed yet,” Harper said, adding,

“We’re talking 3,500 towers across six countries so it takes time to move those sorts of transactions forward, but we would hope that sort of transaction timeframe would be realistic.”

he said when asked whether the transactions would be done by the end of the first quarter of 2015.

Helios, founded by George Soros-backed Helios Investment Partners, says it is Africa’s largest tower firm with over 7,800 towers. Other operators in Africa are American Tower and Lagos-listed IHS.

African mobile use is relatively low and a prime attraction for tower companies is to build new sites to reach uncovered sections and meet rising demand for Internet connectivity.

Several other telecom operators have already offloaded thousands of towers. In September, South Africa’s MTN, sold some 9,100 Nigerian towers to a new joint venture with IHS. The two companies have also had transactions in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Rwanda and Zambia.