Vodafone Essar is reportedly in the process of hiving off its towers and mobile infrastructure assets to a new company, Ortus Infratel and Holdings. Ortus will hold Vodafone Essar's 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers, a three-way joint venture between Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular that manages towers in 16 telecom circles. Ortus will also hold Vodafone Essar's towers and other related infrastructure in the six circles where Indus Towers is not present. Ortus is likely to have at least 44,000 towers. On the basis of the recent Tata-Quippo merger valuations, the new company could potentially carry an asset-based valuation of around Rs 340 billion.