MUMBAI: Tata Teleservices Ltd. is in talks with several firms about spining off its mobile phone towers into a separate unit, part or all of which could then be sold, its chief executive said on Thursday.
Tata Teleservices operates CDMA mobile services in India, the fastest-growing mobile market.
"Towers are passive infrastructure. We are actively discussing with various companies on having them take over the business," chief executive Darryl Green told reporters.
"We have a tremendous asset ... just about everyone you've heard of has been in talks with us," he said, but declined to name the companies or the valuation of the towers business.
Larger rival Reliance Communications Ltd. has said it would spin off its towers business into a separate unit, and leading mobile services provider Bharti Airtel Ltd. has said it would do the same.
Newspapers have indicated American Tower Corp., as well as private equity firms including Blackstone and Carlyle, and Singapore state investment firm Temasek Holdings were interested in Reliance Communications' towers unit.
Tata Teleservices, along with subsidiary Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd., has more than 15.5 million subscribers in India.
The company plans to invest about 30-35 billion rupees ($675-$790 million) in the fiscal year to March 2008, roughly the same amount as it invested in the year to March 2007, Green said.
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