Indian telecoms giant Bharti Airtel has raised more than Rs21bn (US$350m) from the sale of shares in tower arm Bharti Infratel on the stock exchange today.
Airtel said in a bourse filing that strong demand for the offering of 85 million equity shares,…
Indian telecoms giant Bharti Airtel has raised more than Rs21bn (US$350m) from the sale of shares in tower arm Bharti Infratel on the stock exchange today.
Airtel said in a bourse filing that strong demand for the offering of 85 million equity shares, equal to a 4.5% stake, allowed the final price to be set at a premium to the Rs250 (US$4.07) floor price, resulting in a 3.5% discount to the volume-weighted average price over the past 30 days.
The offering, conducted via the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India, was upsized from 45 million shares when a greenshoe option was exercised.
Bharti Enterprises vice chairman Akhil Gupta said the strong interest in the offer “underlines the robust business model, strong fundamentals and the potential going forward for Bharti Infratel as the Indian telecom industry enters a phase of data services led growth.”
Proceeds will help Airtel to further deleverage by reducing debt, he noted.
The transaction has seen Airtel’s stake in Infratel fall to 74.86%, ensuring compliance with a rule requiring at least 25% of listed companies’ shares to be publicly traded.
At least 25% of shares sold were reserved for mutual funds registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India and insurance companies registered with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority. No single bidder other than the qualifying mutual funds and insurance companies could be allocated more than 25% of available shares.
The sellers’ brokers were Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and UBS.
Airtel group treasurer Harjeet Koli said investors from the US, Asia and Europe as well as India participated in the sale, broadening Infratel’s investor base.
Separately, it emerged in late June that Infratel planned to buy towers from its parent in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Its chairman Akhil Gupta told the Economic Times that the company could also consider acquiring sites from local operators Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, if they came up for sale.
Infratel, which was listed for US$760m in late 2012, is looking to extend its footprint across Asia as more operators prepare to offload towers to focus on their core operations.
