ATC India started its journey in 2007 by erecting towers for mobile operators in Orissa and Bihar. After that ATC India continued its growth by acquisition of other companies - Xcel Telecom (May 2009), Transcend Infrastructure (November 2009), Essar Telecom Infrastructure (February 2010), Viom Networks (majority stake in April 2016; complete acquisition in April 2019), Vodafone Tower Holdings (April 2018) Idea Cellular Infrastructure Services Ltd (ICISL) (May 2018).
In March 2018 ATC completed merger of its 5 Indian subsidiaries (ATC India Tower Corp Pvt Ltd, ATC Tower Co. of India Pvt Ltd, McCoy Developers Pvt Ltd, Transcend Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, ATC Telecom Tower Corp Pvt Ltd) into ATC Telecom Infrastructure Pvt Ltd (ATC TIPL).
ATC India's business dried up as Indian telecom service providers consolidated. They had to rely heavily on Vodafone and Idea's rents (later merged as Vi). Vi is also a loss making telecom carrier in India - the company is yet to launch 5G services commercially.
Therefore in April, 2023 ATC India had talks with Canada's Brookfield (who owns Jio's tower assets under Summit Digitel branding) to sell 100% stake of Indian tower unit. ATC also had talks with US infrastructure fund Stonepeak Partners, Macquarie and KKR & Co but response had been lukewarm. ATC initially wanted to sell 50% but no takers compelled them to think about full buyout.
In June 2023 Florida based private equity firm I Squared Capital (https://www.isquaredcapital.com) became interested in Boston based ATC's Indian unit. ISC might buy 90% while New York based investment firm Stonepeak may buy remaining 10%; Or they both can bid for ATC India's complete buyout. The major concern in this buyout is difference in enterprise valuation - as Boston based ATC valuing its Indian arm at $ 4billion while ISC and Stonepeak could bid at $ 1.8-2.2 billion.
On January 6, 2024 Brookfield announced it would acquire 100% of ATC India. ATC India will be acquired by Data Infrastructure Trust (DIT), an infrastructure investment trust sponsored by an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management. I Squared Capital and Stonepeak were also in the race to buy out ATC India.
Brookfield entity DIT already has invested twice in Indian telecom infra space. In December 2019 Brookfield acquired Reliance Jio's tower assets. By end of 2020 Brookfield-acquired Jio Infratel was rebranded as Summit Digitel.
Brookfield also acquired Space Teleinfra in July 2021 for Rs 900 crore. Space Teleinfra was a shared telecom infrastructure provider for voice and data connectivity. Ankit Goel and Radhey R Sharma founded this company - STIPL in 2016 with a focus on providing telecom infrastructure to mobile network operators for Outdoor Small Cells (ODSC), in-building solutions (IBS), and Roof Top Towers. The company has a well spread customer base across all the three major mobile operators, with a pan-India presence. Post-acquisition, STIPL was rebranded as Crest Digitel Private Limited.
In December 2023, Brookfield backed DIT has formed a new subsidiary - Roam Digitel, dedicated for tower acquisition and construction. Devesh Garg, chief sales and marketing officer of Summit Digitel is acting as Director of Roam Digitel.
Summit Digitel has approx. 1,75,000 towers across India (including approx. 35,000 new towers deployed by them post-acquisition of Jio's tower assets). As Brookfield backed DIT acquired ATC India's 78,300 towers - the tower sites increases to 2,53,000 making Summit Digitel is the largest tower company in India, beating Bharti Airtel backed Indus Towers (with approx. 2,00,000 towers).
Many see this deal by Brookfield is the sign of long term commitment in this country. Roham Dhamija, director head (India & Middle East), Analysys Mason explained, “It will rationalise and optimise competition in the tower industry, as two tower companies serving in a three-operator space is the most optimal competitive environment in any telecom market."
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