Reliance Communications (RCom), which exited the Indian mobile market in 2017, received bids totalling INR250 billion ($3.5 billion) for its defunct mobile operation during a meeting of its creditors.

It received an INR47 billion bid from Reliance Jio for the tower and fibre assets of Reliance Infratel, while UV Asset Reconstruction Company offered about INR160 billion for spectrum, real estate, and enterprise and data centre businesses held by RCom and its subsidiaries, The Economic Times (ET) reported.

The asset sale is not the troubled operator’s first attempt to offload its mobile assets. A long-planned spectrum trading agreement between RCom and Jio was rejected by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) in late 2018 on the grounds it went against guidelines.

After failing to sell assets required to settle debts of about INR465 billion, RCom started insolvency proceedings in February 2019.

ET said if the latest deals are finalised, RCom’s lenders would recover 75 per cent of the total outstanding debt.