American Tower Corp. said Wednesday (Oct. 21) it will buy 51 percent of Asia-Pacific telecommunications infrastructure company Viom Networks for $1.17 billion. In a filing with the SEC, Boston-based American Tower said it will get about 42,200 wireless communications towers in the deal along with 200 indoor distributed antenna systems in India. AMT, which has about 97,000 communications sites, already owns 14,000 communications towers in India and may face some regulatory obligations in merging them with Viom.
The move by American Tower is seen as a way of capitalizing on India’s booming Smartphone market and fast-rowing data buying craze. Indian tower companies have been hard-pressed to build towers fast enough to keep up with market demand as Google and others have rushed to hit the marketplace with low-cost handheld mobile devices.
Viom’s majority selling shareholders include SREI Infrastructure Finance Limited and Tata Teleservices Limited. Tata owns more than 100 companies globally including carmakers Jaguar and Land Rover. AMT said consummation of the transaction is subject to certain conditions, including regulatory approval. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2016.
Shares of AMT closed down in Nasdaq trading Wednesday at $96.06, off 85 cents.
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