Nettle Infrastructure Investments Ltd, Bharti Airtel’s wholly owned subsidiary on Wednesday has acquired an additional 4.94 per cent stake about 133 million shares worth Rs 2,882.32 crore in the tower company Bharti Infratel Limited, according to a filing.
Earlier before this acquisition, Bharti Airtel Limited and Nettle Infrastructure held 23.04 per cent and 13.69 per cent stake respectively, in Bharti lnfratel. Now, with this acquisition the aggregate holding of Bharti Airtel and Nettle has increased from 36.73 per cent as on September quarter to 41.66 per cent in Infratel.
The stake of Bharti lnfratel was acquired from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners LLC, which has sold 77.08 million shares at an average of Rs 215.44 per share, aggregating a total of Rs 1,660.61 crore. These stakes were held through P5 Asia Holding Investments Mauritius Limited and EdgePoint Global Portfolio and EdgePoint Growth & Income Portfolio which has sold about 31.21 million for Rs 672.83 crore and 18.11 million shares for Rs 390.44 crore.
In September, the board of Bharti Infratel has decided to proceed further with the scheme of merger with the Indus Towers. Vodafone Idea Ltd. has chosen a cash consideration for its 11.15 per cent shareholding in Indus Towers which was worth around Rs 4,000 crore and the merger was completed last month. Vodafone Idea received Rs 3,760.1 crore as a cash consideration for its 11.15 per cent stake in Indus Tower, while Vodafone Group and Providence were allotted 28.2 per cent and 3.2 per cent stake respectively.