Brookfield Infrastructure, GIC buy telecom towers of Reliance Industries for $3.4 billion

GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, said on Tuesday it and a group of investors, including Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP, bought an Indian telecom tower company from a unit of Reliance Industries for $3.4 billion.

The deal was signed in December last year and had been awaiting regulatory approval.

Since then, Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance has been selling stakes in its digital unit to blue-chip companies, raising billions of dollars, to cut debt.

The finalisation of the deal also marks a foray into the fast-growing telecom market in India, which, in recent years, has been upended by the launch of Jio, Reliance’s telecom arm, whose cut-price packages have turned it into the country’s biggest telecom carrier by subscribers.