Sardana: Points to ponder

Agra, Aug. 9: Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) will wait and watch before deciding on stake sale in its tower business.

“There are all sorts of speculations in the market about the tower business. We have not made any formal statement. With the 3G policy coming up, the valuations could alter. Let us see what happens,” said Anil Sardana, managing director of TSSL.

However, Quippo Infrastructure Equipment Ltd of the Srei group, which was slated to buy a 49 per cent stake in TTSL’s tower arm, had said in June that it hoped to wrap up the deal in a few months.

“We are in regular touch with TTSL,” said Sunil Kanoria, managing director of Quippo Infrastructure Equipment. Kanoria, however, refused to comment on the change in the valuation and its impact on the tower deal.

Wireless Tata, which has over 10,000 towers under its belt, has an enterprise valuation of over $3.5 billion.

With close to 5,000 towers in its portfolio, Quippo is valued at Rs 3,000 crore.

GSM rollout

TTSL will invest $1.5 billion to roll out GSM services by the end of this fiscal, while another half-a-billion will be invested in various growth areas.

“About half of the investment in the next two years will be raised from promoters and the other half through debts, which could include any instrument, including tapping the market,” said Sardana.

Sardana said the company has been allotted spectrum for GSM rollout only for six circles even though it had applied for a pan-India allocation.

BlackBerry service

The CDMA major will launch BlackBerry services called BlackBerry 8820 in the next two months.