India's Reliance Industries, parent company of Reliance Jio Infocomm, plans to spin off its telecoms infrastructure business in an effort to reduce debt and overall liabilities.
The company is in the process of demerging its tower and fiber assets with the end objective of bringing in new investors and removing the assets from its balance sheets, the Economic Timesreported.
The planned spin off forms a key part of the company's overall asset modernization plan, and is being timed to coincide with the reduction in capex as the company nears the completion of its network infrastructure rollouts.
Earlier this month, Jio filed a scheme of arrangements with the National Company Law Tribunal to demerge its fiber assets to a subsidiary known as Jio Digital Fibre, and its tower assets to Reliance Jio Infratel.
Reliance Jio launched nationwide mobile services in late 2016, with an aggressive promotional offer of providing entirely free voice, data and SMS services for an extended period. The entry triggered a scorched-earth price war that reduced the number of private mobile operators in India to just three.