Airtel sells 3% Bharti Infratel stake for Rs 2570 crore to pare debt

Key Highlights

• Airtel sold 67.53 million shares of Bharti Infratel for over Rs 2570 crore.
• The company along with its subsidiaries now owns 58% in Bharti Infratel.
• The proceeds from the sale will be used to pare the company's debt.

India’s telecom major, Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said that it had successfully sold its stake in its mobile tower arm Bharti Infratel to pare debt.

“Bharti Airtel via its wholly owned subsidiary, Nette Infrastructure Investments Ltd, today announced the successful disinvestment of 67.53 million shares of its subsidiary Bharti Infratel Ltd through a secondary share sale in the stock market,” the company said in a filing on NSE today.

Further the company added, “The allocation was done to global tower company investors, fund managers and long only funds, including many repeat investors. UBS and JP Morgan were joint placement agents for the transaction.”

Shares of the company were trading lower by 0.10 points or 0.02% at Rs 417.60 per share on BSE Sensex intraday.

The stake sale garnered over Rs 2570 crore and the company said the proceeds of the sale would be used to ‘pare debt’ of the company.

“The sale was for a total consideration of over Rs 2570 crore (over $ 400 million) and was executed at a price of Rs 380.6 per share, representing a discount of c. 4% to the previous day’s closing price,” Airtel said.

Net debt of Bharti Airtel stood at Rs 87,840.4 crore in Q1 FY18.

Airtel was reportedly trying to sell 3.7% stake in Bharti Infratel as per a report by PTI on Monday. The telecom operator had also transferred 11.32% stake in Bharti Infratel to Nette back in March at a value of Rs 6806 crore.

Before the sale of stake in Infratel, Airtel along with Nettle had owned 61.65% in the mobile tower business, as per a report by TelecomTalk on Tuesday. Now the company said its equity holding stood at 58%.

“Following the closure of this transaction, Bharti Airtel and its wholly owned subsidiaries together have an equity holding of 58% in Bharti Infratel,” Airtel said.

Due to competition from Reliance Jio, Airtel’s first quarter profit dipped 75% YoY to Rs 367 crore. The company’s consolidated revenue fell 14% to Rs 21, 958 crore from the year ago period.

Also Read: Bharti Airtel's Q1 earnings explained in six charts