The Essar group and American Tower Corp. (ATC) announced the closure of the share purchase agreement signed earlier between Transcend Infrastructure Ltd. (TIL), ATC’s wholly owned subsidiary, and three Essar Group companies for TIL to fully acquire Essar Telecom Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. (ETIPL) in all cash deal.

The deal values ETIPL at Rs.2,100 crore and is subject to certain post closing adjustments. ETIPL claims to have 4,630 wireless tower sites and is operational in 14 out of the 23 circles with a tenancy ratio of 1.9x.

Commenting on the transaction, Vikash Saraf, Director, Strategy and M&A, Essar Group said, “We are very pleased to complete this transaction which transfers a vibrant tower company we built up, to a world class tower infrastructure company like American Tower, who can take it to new heights as a significant participant in the growth of the Indian telecom industry.”

Amit Sharma, Executive Vice President and President Asia of ATC said, “We are very pleased to add ETIPL and its attractive tower portfolio to American Tower’s existing Indian operations. The combined portfolio will significantly strengthen our unique ability and capacity to serve our wireless telecom customers enhance their network coverage, reduce their Capex and Opex and help launch new technologies like 3G and WIMAX. This third acquisition in a span of 15 months shows our commitment to the Indian market. The strong team we get with ETIPL will help us better serve our customers by bringing in strong systems & processes for safe, multi tenant tower rollout that is environmentally sound.”

Barclays Capital acted as Exclusive Financial Advisor to the Essar Group on this transaction.