New Delhi: A batch of foreign investors has reportedly purchased a 49% stake in Global Assets Holding Corporation (GHC). According to the reports, the foreign investors, including Singapore's SC Bank private equity fund, Mauritius’s Technology Infrastructure, Park Holding Finance Corporation from Virgin Islands and others, have paid Rs 560 crore to buy the state in the holding company of leading network services company GTL Ltd and telecom tower player GTL Infrastructure Ltd.

GHC has established itself as an MVP in the telecom infrastructure and networking services space. It holds 30% stake in the India Wireless Technology Ltd, and wholly owns Global InnovSource Solutions.

According to the company sources, GHC will step up its investment in GTL from 28% to 62%, after the aforesaid deal. It will also enhance its stake in GTL infrastructure. Also, with GHC offloading stake in these investors, the total foreign direct investment in GTL will increase to a little over 71% from 40.7% while in FDI in GTL Infrastructure will rise to 39.3% from 33.9%.

Currently, GHC has combined revenues of Rs 1,281 crore and over 5,000 employees across 25 countries. It has also told the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) that it would use the proceeds to further increase its investments in other unlisted group companies. It has also added that it will invest in its overseas subsidiaries for expanding business opportunities globally.

The Industry sources say that the investors have picked up stake in GHC mainly because of the impressive performance of GTL and GTL Infrastructure. Offering a wide range of services such as network planning and design, network deployment, operations and maintenance and also infrastructure management, GTL is one of the largest network services providers in India. It has a presence in 20 countries and is associated with about 35 operators globally.

Currently embarking on an ambitious plan of rolling out more than 22,000 towers across various telecom circles in India, GTL infrastructure is India’s third largest passive telecom infrastructure provider. The unlisted India Wireless Technology is in the business of manufacturing and fabrication of steel towers for telecom networks and the power transmission industry.

GTL is also setting up funding to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore for making global acquirements and has already kicked off talks with at least four different companies toward this. Recently, GTL had taken over Genesis Consultancy, a UK-based network services provider, for about over Rs 40 crore. Additionally, GTL Infrastructure has already rolled out 1,200 cell-sites and plans to set up another 6,700 towers by March 2008 with an investment of Rs 2,030 crore.

The potential for stand-alone tower business sector in India is visible from the fact revealed by the estimates of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India that the country needs about 350,000 towers by 2010 from about 111,000 at present.