India's Bharti Airtel is reportedly on track to complete the sale of its African telecom towers within seven days, in deals that could be worth up to $3 billion.
The company has shortlisted four tower companies interested in the acquisition and is close to finalizing a deal, two sources told India's Economic Times.
The four shortlisted companies are reportedly Helios Towers Africa, IHS, American Tower and Eaton Towers.
Airtel has been rumored to be interested in selling its African tower assets for some time. According to the sources, it has taken six months to get a deal together, because of the added complexity of the fact that its tower assets are spread across 17 African countries.
Due to this fact, the company may sell its tower assets to more than one company, the report states.
Airtel had initially been considering adopting the model it had used in India for its tower joint venture Indus Towers, involving partnering with rivals to share tower resources.
But several factors, including the cost of running towers in Africa, weaker infrastructure and a lower population density, made such a partnership impractical.
According to one source, Airtel will use up to $2 billion of the proceeds of the sale to pay down debt, and use the remainder for capital expenditure . The deal could lift Airtel's pre-tax profit for the year by $100 million.