Indus Towers, Bharti Infratel to have Bimal Dayal as CEO; Hemant Ruia as CFO

Bharti Group and Vodafone Group Plc have said that industry veterans Bimal Dayal will be the Chief Executive Officer after the merger of Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel which is in an advanced stage of completion. At the same time, Hemant Ruia will be the Chief Financial Officer.

Dayal, who is currently the CEO of Indus Towers, will be responsible for the combined business and will take forward integration of the two companies in the preparation of the merger. The merger announced last year is expected to conclude by June end after obtaining regulatory approvals and will create one of the largest tower companies globally.

"The existing leadership teams of both Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel will continue to manage their respective businesses till the merger becomes effective," the companies said in a joint statement. The merger of Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers will create a pan-India tower company with over 163,000 towers operating across all 22 telecom service areas in India.

"The combination of the two companies' highly complementary footprints will create a tower operator with the ability to offer the high quality shared passive infrastructure services needed to support the pan-India expansion of wireless broadband services using 4G/4G+/5G technologies for the benefit of Indian consumers and businesses," said the statement. The combined company will continue to offer high-quality passive infrastructure services to all telecom operators on a non-discriminatory basis, thus helping to support the delivery of the government's vision of 'Digital India'.

The shareholder groups look forward to early completion of the merger and move towards successful integration, said the statement. Bharti Infratel and Vodafone Group own 42 per cent each in Indus Towers, while Vodafone Idea -- the merged entity of Idea Cellular and Vodafone India -- holds 11.15 per cent. The remaining 4.85 per cent is held by private equity firm Providence.

The merger will help Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Group to sell their stake, bring down debt and invest in their wireless operations to face the heat of a tariff war started with the entry of Reliance Jio in 2016.

(With inputs from agencies.)