New Delhi: India’s second largest operator by subscribers Bharti Airtel Ltd on Friday announced the board of directors for Airtel Africa, the holding company for its operations in Africa.
The board of directors includes representatives from Airtel and the investors—Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, his son Shravin Bharti Mittal, Bharti Airtel’s Africa chief executive officer Raghunath Mandava, Bharti Infratel chairman Akhil Gupta, Warburg Pincus managing director and head of India Vishal Mahadevia, SoftBank Group International president and chief financial officer Alok Sama, CEO International of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd Arthur Lang, and Richard Gubbins.
The announcement came after the company’s African arm completed raising a fresh equity issue worth $1.25 billion from six leading global investors, including Warburg Pincus, Temasek, Singtel and SoftBank Group International.
Airtel Africa is the holding company of Airtel’s operations in 14 countries in the continent which started in 2010 when it bought Kuwait-based telecom operator Zain’s Africa operations for $10.7 billion.
On 14 February, Bharti Airtel announced that it will consider an IPO for the Africa business.
Over the past few years, it has been trying to capture the African market through local deals. It has so far made three small acquisitions in Uganda, Congo Brazzaville and Kenya.
The company has seen a turnaround of its business in recent years.
In July-September, Airtel Africa’s Africa revenue at $824 million grew by 11% as compared to $743 million in the corresponding quarter last year.
Data customers during the quarter increased by 6.6 million to 27.1 million from 20.5 million in the corresponding quarter last year.