Clifford Chance, AZB & Partners, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Luthra & Luthra advised on American Tower Corp’s (ATC) acquisition of a 51 percent controlling stake in Indian mobile mast company Viom Networks for 76 billion rupees ($1.17 billion).
The sellers include mobile phone carrier Tata Teleservices, Singapore state investor GIC, Oman Investment Fund and SREI Infrastructure Finance, according to an ATC statement.
Tata’s stake will be reduced from around 54 percent to 34.5 percent after the sale, according to a Reuters report.
SREI owns about 18 percent of Viom together with its associates, and said in a statement that it will offload its entire stake for 29.52 billion rupees. The money is expected to help SREI boost profits and slash debt.
ATC’s international counsel was Clifford Chance, led by New York corporate partner John Graham with support from New York tax partner Donald Carden. AZB & Partners, led by partners Gautam Saha, Shuchi Sinha, Ajay Bahl, Sunil Agarwal, Samir Gandhi, as well as a Luthra & Luthra team headed by partners Kanchan Sinha and Anshul Jain, also advised ATC.
Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas represented Viom, with partners Ashwath Rau, Nisha Kaur Uberoi, Indranil Deshmukh in charge of the transaction.
ATC said in a statement that it may acquire or may be required to purchase all or part of the outstanding 49 percent in Viom. The Boston-headquarted company also announced that it will eventually combine its Indian operations with Viom. After the deal, ATC will consolidate its 14,000 communications towers with Viom's portfolio of about 42,200 towers, forming India's second-largest mobile mast operator by number of towers.
