While Societe Generale bought 35.3 million shares, accounting for 0.6% stake, that was on offer, as per information on BSE, the quantity bought by the other investors could not be ascertained
Bharti Telecom Ltd, promoter of Bharti Airtel Ltd, has sold 150 million shares worth a total of ₹8,433 crore, or $1.15 billion, to various foreign institutional investors and some domestic mutual funds, a source in the know told Mint.
While the FIIs included Societe Generale, Blackrock, Norges Bank and Fidelity Investments, domestic mutual funds that participated included the likes of Axis Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, SBI Mutual Fund and ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, as per the source.
While Societe Generale bought 35.3 million shares, accounting for 0.6% stake, that was on offer, as per information on BSE, the quantity bought by the other investors could not be ascertained.
Bharti Telecom on Tuesday sold 2.75% stake in Bharti Airtel at a weighted average price of ₹562.22 per share, while Societe General bought the shares at ₹561.10 apiece, as per information on the BSE.
Shares of Bharti Airtel declined nearly 6% on BSE to close trade at ₹559.15 on account of the stake sale.
Emailed queries sent to Bharti Airtel remained unanswered at the time of publishing.
In an exchange filing, the Bharti Airtel promoter, owned jointly by Sunil Mittal and his family as well as Singapore-based Singtel Group, said that the allocation was done to over 50 accounts, with top 10 subscribers getting two-third of the overall allocation.
The stake sale was anchored by several existing and new shareholders, which included several marquee global mutual fund complexes, sovereign wealth funds, multi-strategy funds and domestic institutional investors, Bharti Telecom said.
The promoter’s stake sale was aimed at cleaning up the debt from its books and, post-deal, the debt is expected to be zero at the promoter level, which in turn will create capacity at Bharti Telecom for further capital or shareholder support for the operator.
“With the proceeds, Bharti Telecom Limited will become a zero debt company providing an even stronger financial flexibility and capacity to provide any additional shareholder support as may be desired by Bharti Airtel from time to time," Bharti Enterprises group director Harjeet Kohli was quoted as saying in the filing.
Bharti Group and Singtel, as Bharti Airtel’s largest shareholders remain committed to the business and the long term prospects of Bharti Airtel, Bharti Telecom said.
In the last few years, promoters of Bharti Airtel have invested over ₹21,000 crores, or $3 billion, in the mobile operator, as per the release.
Analysts concurred, with IIFL Securities saying that the stake sale helping the promoter company cut its debt of ₹8,500 crore.
“We see this stake sale by BTL (Bharti Telecom Ltd) a positive in the overall scheme of things as it will make the promoter entity debt free, in turn improving the flexibility for any support to Airtel in future," IIFL Securities said in a note, adding that the fundamentals look sound for Airtel on account of its strong earnings in January-March and prospects of further tariff increases going forward.
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