Vodafone Exits Indus Towers, Timeline of Indus Towers

As expected Vodafone Group (UK) has sold its last shares of Indus Towers and exited Indian tower business completely by multi year phased manner. The last 3% worth of 79.2 million shares in Indus was held by Vodafone's indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries, Omega Telecom Holdings Pvt Ltd and Usha Martin Telematics Limited. The valuation was Rs 2,800 cr which would be reinvested in Vodafone-Idea's joint telecom venture Vi or to pay the bank loans, network expansion projects, government dues.

In June 2024, Vodafone sold of its 15% share in Indus Towers. 

Official site of Indus Towers Ltd, now notes as Indus Towers Ltd was founded by amalgamation of Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel. But we know Indus Towers was formed by the three incumbent telecom operators of India - Airtel, Vodafone and Idea in November 2007. That time Indus was the largest tower co in the world (outside China) and till September of 2024 Indus enjoyed the title as Brookfield (who bought Jio Infratel and ATC India) based Altius became the largest tower company in the world. 

Timeline of Indus Towers: 

November 2007: Bharti Infratel (42%), Vodafone India (42%) and Idea Cellular (16%) founded Indus Towers – the largest tower company in the world (outside China) with more than 1.2 lakh towers.

2009: Vodafone diversify its share in Indus via its subsidiary company - Ortus Infratel Holdings.

May 2018: Bharti Airtel proposed a merger of Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers, that could lead to 1,63,000 towers across 22 circles. Indus Towers' valuation could be  $ 14.6 billion (Rs 965,000 cr).

September 2019: Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel are in the final stages of merger. Post merger Vodafone India and Birla backed Idea Cellular would cut down stakes in the entity. Experts assume that Sunil Mittal backed Bharti may also leave tower biz in a phased manner, in a longer time period. It had been in news that ATC and Brookfield are also eyeing for stakes in Indus+Bharti Infratel merged biz. 

Nov 21, 2020: Bharti Infratel & Indus Towers got merged - Vi sell out its 11.15% stake in the merged entity. Prior to the merger, shareholding in Indus Towers was Bharti Infratel (42%), Vodafone Group (42%), Idea Cellular (11.15%) and PS Asia Holding Investments (Mauritius) Limited or Providence Equity Partners (4.85%).  Post merger Bharti Airtel have 36.7%, Vodafone Group holds 28.12%, PS Asia Holding Investments (Mauritius) Limited (Providence) have 3.25%, Canadian pension fund CPPIB holds 2.17%, and US PE fund KKR owns 4.85% of Indus Towers. 

Q1 of 2022: Vodafone UK sold its 2.4 % stake in Indus via a block deal and another 4.7% to Bharti Airtel. Thus, Vodafone UK raised Rs 3831 Cr, most of which reinvested in Vi. 

February 2024:  KKR & Co via its Singaporean arm, Silver View Portfolio Investments sold its entire 4.85% stake in Indus Tower through open market transaction for Rs 2749.6 crore. That's a loss of 35% on KKR's investment of Rs 4251 crore in 2017.

February 2024: At the same time Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) also sold 2.13% shares (kept 2.19% in Bharti Infratel, translating only 0.05% in Indus) in a similar way. The sell value was Rs 1223.4 crore, that 37% loss of CPPIB's investment of Rs 1965 crore in 2017.

June 2024: Vodafone sold an 18% stake in Indus Towers for Rs 15,300 crore, reducing its holding to 3%. India's second largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel had increased its stake in Indus Towers to 48.95% during that sale by Vodafone. 

September 2024: Altius became the largest tower company in India and in the world (outside China) replacing Indus, as Canana-based Brookfield buys out Indian unit of American Tower Corp (ATC). Brookfield acquired Jio Infratel aka Summit Digitel in September 2020. All tower and telecom assets of Brookfield goes into a single entity - Altius. 

January 2025: Vodafone sold 79.2 million shares or 3% stake in Indus which was held by its indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries, Omega Telecom Holdings Pvt Ltd and Usha Martin Telematics Limited. The valuation is Rs 2,800 crore. Thus Vodafone Group exits Indus Towers. As on December 31, 2024 Indus, country's largest telecom infrastructure company has a pan-India presence with 234,643 towers and 386,819 co-locations. 

February 2025: Bharti is busy to merge all its tower assets under Indus. Indus will acquire another 16,100 towers from Bharti Airtel and Bharti Hexacom for Rs 2147.6 cr and Rs 1134 cr respectively.