India’s largest mobile operator Bharti Airtel is looking to sell minority stakes in its landline and enterprise businesses in an attempt to reduce its debt load, according to the Economic Times citing two executives with direct knowledge of the…
India’s largest mobile operator Bharti Airtel is looking to sell minority stakes in its landline and enterprise businesses in an attempt to reduce its debt load, according to the Economic Times citing two executives with direct knowledge of the matter.
One of the executives was quoted as saying that the company is looking to sell less than 50% in both the enterprise and fixed-line units, valued at Rs170bn (US$3bn) and Rs65bn (US$1.15bn) respectively.
A Bharti spokesperson reportedly declined to comment on the fixed-line operations but stressed there were no such plans for the enterprise arm. The company was not immediately available to comment on the report.
A stake sale in the two businesses would only takes place after Bharti divests itself of a 25% stake in its DTH arm, Bharti Telemedia, valued at US$250m, according to the newspaper.
A number of buyers are said to be interested in Bharti Telemedia, including cablecos Comcast and Liberty Global, as well as private equity firms KKR, Providence, Bain Capital and GAAP.
This report comes a few weeks after Bharti sold a 5% stake in itself to Qatar Foundation Endowment (QFE) in a transaction valued at US$1.26bn.
At the time, the telco said that the investment “will further strengthen the capital structure and provide further flexibility for the company to deliver on its growth strategy”.
In early May, Bharti posted a 47% drop in its net income from Rs42.594bn (US$797.5m) in 2011 to Rs22.757bn (US$426.1m) in the financial year ending 31 March. It also reported debt of US$11.74bn against US$12.71bn the year before.