Business

Airtel, Voda Idea may turn fibre JV into infra investment trust, says report

Updated : June 12, 2019 10:11 AM IST

The move, the report said, is aimed at making the venture a real competitor to rival Reliance Jio Infocomm.

The merger plan, once materialises, will convert Vodafone Idea’s 156,000 route km of optic fibre and Airtel’s 246,000 km into a network that is over 4,00,000 Km long in comparison to Jio’s 3,00,000 km network, the report said.

Airtel, Voda Idea may turn fibre JV into infra investment trust, says report

Telecom giants Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel are in talks to turn their proposed optic fibre network joint entity into an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT), reported The Economic Times.

The move, the report said, is aimed at making the venture a real competitor to rival Reliance Jio Infocomm.

“The two companies are likely to announce their optic fibre combined entity by the end of this month which will be an InvIT since it has many benefits such as pushing some debt off the books of the two telcos,” a person close to the development told The Economic Times.

The development comes at a time when Jio has already transferred its tower and fibre assets to two special purpose vehicles (SPVs) owned by Sebi-registered InvITs named Jio Digital Fibre (JDFPL) and Reliance Jio Infratel.

(Disclosure: RIL, the promoter of Reliance Jio, also controls Network18, the parent company of CNBCTV18.com.)

Have you signed up for Primo, our daily newsletter?

It has all the stories and data on the market, business, economy and tech that you need to know.

To keep watching CNBC-TV18, India's No. 1 English Business News Channel, call your Cable or DTH Operator and subscribe now for just Rs. 4 per month. You can also subscribe to CNBC-TV18 Prime HD for Re 1/- per month.Find out more