New Delhi, July 2: HSBC Holdings Plc has bid for at least 15 per cent stake in the telecom infrastructure business of Reliance Communications (R-Com).

According to officials, HSBC has invested around Rs 450 crore in a fund, which will buy a minority stake in R-Com’s telecom infrastructure business. This is part of the UK-based bank’s expansion plans.

R-Com is spinning off its telecom infrastructure operations into a separate company — Reliance Telecom Infrastructure Limited. It plans to divest up to 26 per cent of Reliance Telecom and is negotiating with various investors over the last two to three months.

Apart from HSBC, bids are also coming in from other global companies. They are private equity arms of Deustche Bank; global tower infrastructure firms — Israel’s Tower Vision and American Towers; private equity investors — Apax Partners, Carlyle and Temasek; and financial investors — George Soros, Blueridge and the US-based Tiger.

The final price paid by the highest bidder will not only determine the valuation of Reliance Telecom but also set a trend for other local tower companies.

According to industry analysts, the 26 per cent stake in Reliance Telecom will cost Rs 4,500 crore, valuing the company at Rs 18,000.

Reliance Communications owns over 14,000 towers and will add another 20,000 this fiscal.

According to estimates made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the country will need about 350,000 telecom towers by 2010 compared with about 111,000 at present, providing huge opportunities to standalone tower companies.

Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular are also in the process of hiving off their tower businesses.

Bharti’s tower subsidiary with its 40,000 towers is valued at more than $11 billion. The government is encouraging operators to share towers to bring down rollout costs.

Operators, however, are also expecting tower subsidiaries to bring in big income from rentals.