Shareholders in America Movil have given the green-light to a plan to sell-off tower assets in Mexico, with a “favourable vote of 98.2 per cent” supporting the move.

The company said in a statement that it has “been approved to initiate the necessary and convenient processes to implement the spin-off approved today”.

America Movil is planning to contribute “certain assets (mainly comprised of the passive infrastructure used by its wireless operations in Mexico)” into a new company, called Telesites.

Telesites will also get around MXP21 billion ($1.37 billion) of America Movil’s debt.

The operator has been under pressure from Mexican regulators to reduce its hold on the country’s telecoms sector.

In an earlier statement, it said that following “business and operational assessments routinely carried out by its board of directors, America Movil determined that in the medium and long term, it will be able to create more shareholder value by segmenting certain business activities and creating a new publicly listed company, which will market its assets directly to third parties”.

The move will increase the number of towers in Mexico available to any operator to 90 per cent from 45 per cent, “allowing new operators and current competitors…to utilise the deployed site infrastructure”.

Mexico also already has a number of independent towers companies, led by American Tower.