Bharti Airtel and American Tower Corporation (American Tower) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement, through Bharti Airtel  subsidiary company, Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV (Airtel), for the sale of over 4,800 of Airtel's communications towers in Nigeria. Airtel will be the anchor tenant on the portfolio under a lease with a ten year initial term.  
 
''We are pleased to announce the launch of our operations in Nigeria while expanding our relationship with Airtel, one of the leading multinational operators in the world,'' said Jim Taiclet, chairman, president and chief executive officer of American Tower. ''With the largest population and economy in Africa and relatively underdeveloped wireless infrastructure, we view Nigeria as a tremendous growth opportunity. Further, we expect this investment to support our long term objective of generating double digit AFFO per share growth for our stockholders.'' 
 
Christian de Faria, MD and chief executive officer of Bharti Airtel Africa, said, ''Nigeria is the largest mobile market in Africa and a key one for Airtel. This agreement, which is part of our stated philosophy of promoting infrastructure sharing, will provide us with considerable cost efficiencies and at the same time allows us to sharpen our focus on thecustomer. American Tower has a proven track record in passive infrastructure management and we look forward to benefitting from the best practices from all other countries it operates in."

Shares of the Bharti Airtel declined Rs 2.75, or 0.69%, to settle at Rs 398. The total volume of shares traded was 82,803 at the BSE (Monday).