Spice Communications has informed Bombay Stock Exchanges that its board has approved selling 875 towers to an independent tower company. Later Quipo confirmed that it had bought entire portfolio of towers of Spice Communications.

Group President and Managing Director of Quipo Arun Kapur said that the company would also have access to further roll out that would be undertaken by Spice.

Spice board had also approved a proposal to borrow $400 million from Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) and another $410 million from China Development Bank (CDB).

Tower business is abuzz with activities. On December 8, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar and Idea announced merging their tower assets in 16 circles to form an independent tower company Indus Towers. Bharti and Vodafone would have 42 per cent stake each in the company while Idea Cellular would have 16 per cent stake. Indus Towers would offer towers to all the telecom operators. To begin with, the company will have 70,000 towers. The capital investment in the towers is over Rs 35,000 crore, and the enterprise value of the new company would be around Rs 1,50,000 crore.

Reliance has already hived off its infrastructure division as a separate company. Presently, GTL Infrastructure is the largest independent tower company in India.

Therefore, Quipo still looks to be a small player compared to the existing players in the segment. However, the acquisition of Spice business shows its commitment to the Indian market.