Vodafone group elevates stake sale in Indus Towers in line with debt repayment

Vodafone is ready to sell more of the Indian towers group Indus Towers than initially planned, an 18 per cent stake, to reduce its hefty debt by up to $2 billion. The transaction would entail the sale of a bigger-than-expected stake in Indian tower company Indus Towers, as Vodafone Group aims to reduce its debt burden in a strategic move.

Vodafone has a 21.5 per cent stake in Indus Towers, one of the world's largest telecom tower companies. Reports say that the 1.8 billion euros, or $1.93 billion, reaped from the sale will be applied to paring down the company's heavy debt.

The latest sale, planned for Wednesday, involves shares at a price range of 310-341 rupees each. This dropped Indus Towers by as much as 9.4 per cent before recovering slightly to trade down 3.9 per cent at 331 rupees.

Indus Towers has a portfolio of 219,736 towers and 368,588 colocations across all 22 telecom circles in India. Bharti Airtel is also a shareholder in the company- it's the country's second-biggest telecom firm. In February, private equity giants KKR and CPPIB, a Canadian fund, exited the company by selling their entire stakes.

Block deals, like this Vodafone sale, have picked up in India by the surging stock market to all-time highs. Vodafone is selling 484.7 mn shares of Indus through an accelerated placing as a part of a broader strategy of gradually reducing stake in the tower company. After this transaction, Vodafone's holding in Indus will shrink to 3.1 per cent.

This comes in line with the comments from the company in 2022 that it was looking to sell the entirety of its stake in the Indian company and that it was currently in talks with many interested parties. This communications group has been aggressively revamping its business and focusing on Europe. Indeed, in March, Vodafone agreed to sell its Italian operations to Swisscom for $8.7 billion in cash.