Indian conglomerate Bharti Enterprises has reportedly mandated group special projects director Sarvjit Dhillon to help turn around telecoms unit Bharti Airtel’s loss-making African operations.
Dhillon, previously the group’s CFO, will work alongside…
Indian conglomerate Bharti Enterprises has reportedly mandated group special projects director Sarvjit Dhillon to help turn around telecoms unit Bharti Airtel’s loss-making African operations.
Dhillon, previously the group’s CFO, will work alongside Christian de Faria, who became CEO of Airtel Africa in January, the Economic Times reported citing people familiar with the matter. Both will report to Bharti group CEO Sunil Mittal.
Bharti’s top management felt they needed a “heavyweight” to add muscle to the African operations, one source was cited as saying.
Neither Bharti Enterprises nor its telecoms unit was immediately available for comment.
Mittal has turned his attentions to Africa now the Indian telecoms operations have returned to growth, the report cited a source as saying.
Bharti claimed to have 69.1 million customers across operations in 17 African countries as of 30 June, up 7.6% from Q2 2013.
The African operations generated a net loss of US$137m in Q2 2014, up from US$52m in Q2 2013, which Bharti said mainly reflected foreign exchange losses. Revenues for the quarter totalled US$1.16bn, up from US$1.06bn in the corresponding period the previous year, while EBITDA remained flat at US$283m.
