Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio acquires wireless assets of Anil Ambani's RCOM

Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, has signed binding definitive agreements for the acquisition of specified assets of Reliance Communications (RCOM) and its affiliates.

The transactions will close in phases, between January and March 2018.

Jio will acquire assets under four categories namely towers, optic fiber cable network, spectrum, and media convergence nodes from RCOM and its affiliates, the company statement said.

"These assets are strategic in nature and are expected to contribute significantly to the large scale roll-out of wireless and fiber to home and enterprise services by RJIL," the statement said.

"The acquisition is subject to receipt of requisite approvals from governmental and regulatory authorities, consents from all lenders, a release of all encumbrances on the said assets and other conditions precedent. The consideration is payable at completion and is subject to adjustments as specified in the agreement," it added.

Reliance Jio launched free services in September 2016 and commercial services in April 2017. When it launched free services, everyone’s subscriber base was rising.

Earlier on Tuesday, Anil Ambani, Chiarman of RCom said that it would sell telecom assets, including spectrum, towers, fibres and some real estate assets worth of Rs 25, 000 crore by the end of March 2018 to pay lenders and exit the strategic debt restructuring programme. This way RCom will achieve full resolution of its debt by cutting it to Rs 6,000 crore by monetising assets. The company had a debt of about Rs 45,000 crore as of FY17.

While Reliance Jio, alleged to disrupt telecom market, claimed to have gained more than 100 million customers in less than six months, Reliance Communication's core business telecom services is witnessing steady decline over the past few quarters.

Mukesh Ambani-led RIL spent Rs 1,50,000 crore on its newly-launched Jio 4G services including spectrum. RIL is aiming to become debt-free in the next three years with new cash flows from petrochemicals and 4G services.  It is also planning to go for IPO by next year-end.