On Wednesday, Bharti Airtel announced the acquisition of 20% stake in Warburg Pincus DTH arm for INR 3,126 Crore, which will be paid primarily via issuance of around 36.47 million equity shares of Airtel for INR 600 per share and up to INR 10,378 million in cash.
In 2017, Warburg Pincus had acquired 20 per cent in Bharti Telemedia and post the transaction, Warburg would hold 0.66 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel.
The issuance of shares proposed through preferential allotment is subject to shareholders’ approval, the company said on Wednesday.
The proposed transaction is part of Airtel’s strategy to align the shareholding of its customer-facing products, services, and businesses under the same holding group. Full control and ownership over Bharti Telemedia allow Airtel to offer differentiated and converged solutions to customers to promote “One Home” strategy,” the company said.
Airtel, which is engaged in a tight competition with Reliance Jio in the Telecom space, aims to align the ownership of its consumer-facing businesses, with the Warburg Pincus transaction. Apart from this, the company is looking to scale up and monetise its digital businesses, including music streaming app Wynk, content platform Xstream, cloud-based communication platform Airtel IQ, among others.
