American Tower To Buy Airtel's 4,800 Communications Towers In Nigeria

(RTTNews) - American Tower Corp. (AMT) said Monday that it has agreed to buy Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s over 4,800 communications towers in Nigeria.

The total consideration is expected to be about $1.05 billion, subject to customary adjustments, American Tower said in a regulatory filing.

Airtel will be the anchor tenant on the portfolio under a lease with a ten-year initial term.

The agreement will allow New Delhi, India-based Airtel to focus on its core business and customers, enable it to deleverage through debt reduction and will significantly reduce its on-going capital expenditures on passive infrastructure in Nigeria.

Christian de Faria, MD and Chief Executive Officer of Bharti Airtel Africa, said, "Nigeria is the largest mobile market in Africa and a key one for Airtel. This agreement, which is part of our stated philosophy of promoting infrastructure sharing, will provide us with considerable cost efficiencies and at the same time allows us to sharpen our focus on the customer. American Tower has a proven track record in passive infrastructure management and we look forward to benefitting from the best practices from all other countries it operates in."

American Tower and Airtel expect to close the deal during the first half of 2015.