New Delhi, June 17 -- Canadian alternative investment firm Brookfield Asset Management has harvested more money from its India telecom tower platform, pushing its cumulative cash-out over the last three years to more than $1.66 billion.
The New York- and Toronto-listed firm, which has made at least four other liquidity moves from its India portfolio so far this year, offloaded roughly 137.5 million units of Altius Telecom Infrastructure Trust, a privately listed infrastructure investment trust (InvIT), on Tuesday for Rs 2,269 crore ($240 million).
Two of Brookfield's co-investors in the telecom tower operator also sold units alongside it. While the British Columbia Investment Management Corp (BCI) offloaded 28.65 million units for about Rs 473 crore, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC sold 55.4 million units for roughly Rs 914 crore.
Together, the three investors sold 221.55 million units, or 7.3% of their unitholding in the InvIT, for about Rs 3,656 crore in the latest move.
Engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro was the largest disclosed buyer, picking up 38 million units worth close to Rs 628 crore. Neo Asset, 360 One Asset and several mutual funds and insurance companies were among the other buyers.
Altius was originally set up by billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries. It was initially known as Tower Infrastructure Trust and then Data Infrastructure Trust before its rebranding as Altius.
Brookfield agreed to invest Rs 25,215 crore (about $3.7 billion then) in Reliance's telecom tower assets in July 2019 in the single-biggest private equity deal in India till then. In late 2019, Brookfield brought GIC and BCI on board as co-investors for the deal. The deal was finally completed at the end of August 2020.
The InvIT privately listed its units on August 31, 2020, with Brookfield owning a tad below 90% of the total units.
Previous liquidity moves
Tuesday's transaction is the latest in a string of sales by Brookfield to monetise its stake in the tower platform.
Brookfield cut its holding in the InvIT from 90% to 75% in August-September 2023 and pulled out a combined Rs 5,196 crore ($625 million then) in the process. BCI was among the main buyers at the time.
In February 2024, Brookfield harvested Rs 6,646 crore ($800 million then) by selling units to GIC and BCI. This reduced its unitholding to 58.88%. The latest transaction would have lowered its stake to around 54.36%, back-of-the-envelope calculations show.
Brookfield's cumulative realisations from the platform since the start of the selldown cycle in 2023 now exceed Rs 14,112 crore, or about $1.66 billion based on the forex rates prevailing at the time of the transactions.
This is not the only money that Brookfield has made from its investment into the InvIT.
The trust has paid out roughly Rs 21,470 crore in cumulative distributions to unitholders between fiscal 2020-21 and fiscal 2025-26, according to its latest investor presentation. Brookfield, as the biggest unitholder, would have pocketed the largest chunk of this amount.
To be sure, the monetisation moves over the past three years came even as Brookfield, BCI and GIC continued to back the platform with fresh capital. In 2024, Brookfield, GIC and BCI together subscribed to a Rs 6,666-crore preferential allotment of units to help fund the trust's roughly $2.5-billion acquisition of American Tower Corp's India business, which was rebranded Elevar Digitel and folded into the renamed Altius platform alongside existing assets Summit Digitel and Crest Digitel.
Altius, which counts Reliance Jio among its anchor tenants, operates more than 256,000 towers, in-building solutions and small-cell sites across India, making it the country's largest independent telecom tower company by site count.
Working out Brookfield's overall return on its investment in the InvIT is not straightforward. The platform has changed hands and structure multiple times since Brookfield first bought into the Reliance-promoted trust in 2020, with subsequent capital calls funding the Crest Digitel and Elevar Digitel acquisitions.
Units of Altius Telecom Infrastructure Trust have traded in a range of Rs 140-171 over the past year and closed around Rs 169-170 in recent sessions, valuing the trust at roughly Rs 50,800 crore, stock-exchange data showed.
Brookfield's other exit moves
Brookfield manages a diverse portfolio in India across real estate, infrastructure, renewable energy, private equity, and private credit verticals with total assets under management of around $30 billion.
The partial exit from Altius is its fifth monetisation move from its India portfolio this year. In March, Brookfield sold a small chunk of units of another InvIT, Energy Infrastructure Trust (EIT), for Rs 143.9 crore. It then sold units worth Rs 231.34 crore ($24 million).
In February, Brookfield sold shares of green energy company CleanMax Enviro Energy Solutions Ltd for Rs 796 crore in a pre-IPO round and then offloaded shares worth Rs 904 crore during the IPO.
Brookfield made several other monetisation moves from its India portfolio last year. It sold a 33.1% stake in EIT for more than $200 million in September last year to a bunch of investors. It also sold a part of its stake in The Leela hotel owner Schloss Bangalore Ltd via an IPO and offloaded a 1.6 GW portfolio of renewable energy assets to Malaysia's Gentari. In addition, it sold a 50% stake in a real estate asset and pulled out more than $100 million from a real estate investment trust.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.