Two Strategic Investors Look To Buy RCom’s Residual Business

Debt-laden Reliance Communications (RCom), which is planning to exit the telecom business entirely, has received interests from two strategic investors for its residual business including submarine cable and data centres.

“These are foreign flags with presence in India. It would take a little bit longer, but these companies are looking at 100 per cent or a controlling stake,” Bill Barney, Chief Executive Officer of RCom and GCX, said in a press conference. “These are mostly funds,” he added, but did not name the companies.

RCom, which had shut down its loss making mobile business in November 2017 and later sold most of its mobile assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJio), now has nine data centres and about 25 per cent of domestic fibre that is put under its enterprise business. The company’s submarine cable unit Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), which owns about 60,000 route KM of sub-sea cable, is also among the assets the strategic investors are interested in.

At the company’s AGM on September 18, RCom Chairman Anil Ambani told shareholders that the company plans to exit telecom and focus on real estate. In December 2017, Anil Ambani’s elder brother Mukesh Ambani’s RJio acquired the wireless assets of the debt-laden company. – The Hindu Business Line