Bharti Airtel’s telecom tower infrastructure arm, Bharti Infratel is proposes to mop up Rs 3,966.90 crore to Rs 4,533 crore through its initial public offering (IPO) that will debut on December 11. It will close on December 14. This will be one of the biggest IPOs after Coal India issue raised more than Rs 15,000 crore.

The IPO will offer 188,900,000 equity shares in the price band of Rs 210 to Rs 240 apiece. The offer comprises fresh issue of 146,234,112 equity shares, with the rest (42,665,888 shares) being put up by investors like Compassvale, GS Strategic, Anadale and Nomura. Post-issue, Bharti Airtel’s holding will decline to 79.42 per cent from prevailing 86.09 per cent.

The 188.9 million shares represent 10 per cent of the post issue paid-up equity capital. At the upper end of the price band, it gives Bharti Infratel a valuation of close to Rs 45,000 crore. Bharti Infratel plans to use the proceeds from the sale of fresh shares (Rs 3,080 crore to Rs 3,483 crore) to install new towers, upgrade existing towers and green initiatives.

“India is the only country where this industry has flourished as the business model is focused on sharing and prospects are good,” Bharti Enterprises deputy group CEO and MD, Akhil Gupta said while explaining the business model followed by most telecom companies in India where they share infrastructure to keep costs down.

Asked if the cancellation of telecom licences by the Supreme Court was putting pressure on the tower industry, Gupta said, “Our industry does not necessarily thrive on too many number of operators, it thrives on healthy operators.” He added that lesser number of operators has given way to players for investing more money in the roll out.

The equity shares on offer will be listed on both BSE and NSE.

Bharti Infratel has close to 33,000 towers in operation. It holds 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers, a company in which all the three largest operators - Vodafone, Idea Cellular (through Aditya Birla Telecom) and Bharti Airtel own a stake. Indus Towers operates over 1,00,000 towers across India.