Vodafone Idea gets creditors' nod to transfer fibre assets to subsidiary

Vodafone Idea, the country's largest telecom operator, on Saturday said that its shareholders and creditors have approved proposal to transfer optical fibre assets to its wholly-owned subsidiary Vodafone Towers Limited.

"The proposed resolution approving the scheme was passed with the requisite majority by equity shareholders of the company," Vodafone Idea said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

On April 11, 2019, the Mumbai-headquartered telecom company had filed a petition with National Company Law Tribunal Ahmedabad, seeking approval for the transfer of its telecom fibre infrastructure to Vodafone Towers.

The decision to hive off its fibre assets into a separate entity is part of the Vodafone's strategy to monetise its assets apart from its stake in the joint entity of Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers which is close to completing their merger.

The meeting of secured and unsecured creditors of the company were held on June 6 for approving the scheme of arrangement between Vodafone Idea and Vodafone Towers and their respective shareholders, the company said.

"The proposed resolution approving the scheme was passed unanimously by secured creditors and unsecured creditors of the company," Vodafone Idea informed the exchange.

The news agency PTI quoted an industry source as saying that Vodafone Idea has received a valuation of around Rs 15,000 crore for its around 1.56 lakh kilometre long telecom fibre assets.

During January-March quarter, India's largest telco by subscribers posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 4,881.9 crore as compared to a net loss of Rs 5,004.6 crore in the December quarter and Rs 4,973.8 crore in the September quarter.

Vodafone India and Idea Cellular have recently completed a capital raising exercise through a rights issue of Rs 25,000 crore to existing eligible equity shareholders.

Edited by Chitranjan Kumar

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