Bharti Airtel – India’s largest mobile operator – is looking to sell-off its holdings in one of its Indian tower businesses in the next year, the firm hinted last week. The Hindu Business Line reports that it is looking to list either Bharti Infratel – a wholly-owned subsidiary – or Indus, a joint-venture in collaboration with rival operators Vodafone and IDEA Cellular. “It is possible that we could look at the initial public offering of Infratel or Indus next fiscal looking at their financial fundamentals,” said Bharti Enterprises Group CFO Manik Jhangiani. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone hold 42 percent stake each in Indus and the remaining 16 percent is held by Idea Cellular. It has over 10,000 towers, while Bharti Infratel has just under 30,000. According to the report, passive infrastructure (towers) accounted for about 9 percent of revenue in Bharti’s most recent financial quarter.

Meanwhile, India’s Business Standard newspaper reported last week that the country’s long-delayed 3G auctions will be completed during the current quarter. “The government is very keen to complete the 3G auction process well within the financial year (31 March 2010),” said Telecoms and IT minister A Raja last week. The auctions are now due to start on 25 February and scheduled to close in early March. India has also changed some overseas borrowing rules to help successful bidders arrange short-term funds, a government statement said Monday, reports Dow Jones Newswires. “It has now been decided that the fee for spectrum allocation may be met out of (Indian) rupee resources by successful bidders, to be refinanced with a long-term overseas commercial borrowing,” the statement said. Under the current auction rules, the successful bidders are required to pay 25 percent of the bid amount within five days of the close of the auction and the balance amount within 15 days of the auction closure. “Given the short window available between the date of application for the auction and the date of payment, the bidders find it difficult to raise overseas commercial borrowings to meet the payment obligation for bidding,” the statement said.