Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) on Friday informed its shareholders that it has sold around 1.2 per cent of its direct stake in Bharti Airtel for SGD 2 billion ($1.5 billion)
The transaction involved Singtel’s wholly owned subsidiary Pastel Limited (a promoter group entity in Airtel), selling 71 million shares at a price of ₹1,814 per share, generating an estimated gain of SDG 1.4 billion for Singtel. The divestment follows a five fold jump in Q4FY25 profit of Airtel.
Singtel said its effective stake in Airtel will drop from 29.5 per cent to 28.3 per cent. Airtel shares ended Friday’s trade at ₹1,814.35, down 2.81 per cent over the previous close. Friday’s closing price of Airtel on the BSE was at the same level as the share sale price.
The transaction was executed via a private placement to international and Indian institutional investors, including domestic mutual funds, and existing shareholders of Airtel were also among the buyers.
Singtel said the private placement received strong interest from existing shareholders and new investors and was well oversubscribed, resulting in both an increase in transaction size as well as tighter final pricing than the initial guidance.
“This transaction allows us to crystallise value at an attractive valuation while remaining a significant shareholder of Airtel,” Arthur Lang, Singtel’s group CFO, said.
“The divestment underscores Singtel’s commitment to disciplined capital allocation and sustained value realisation for shareholders,” he said.
Singtel has been a strategic investor in Airtel for over 20 years. In 2022 and 2024, Singtel had raised a total of around SGD 3.5 billion from the progressive sale of Airtel shares — a 3.3 per cent stake to Bharti Telecom and 0.8 per cent direct stake to US investment management company GQG Partners, respectively.
“This has helped to support the group’s 5G deployment, digital infrastructure expansion and sustainable shareholder distributions,” the Southeast Asian telecom major said.
Despite Singtel offloading its stake in Airtel, analysts are bullish on the Indian telecom major. “Airtel reported a solid Q4FY25 with its India mobile revenue, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) and operating cash flow growing by 21 per cent, 30 per cent and 58 per cent year on year, respectively.
“We continue to see Airtel as an earnings compounding story,” said Kunal Vora, head of India equity research, BNP Paribas India.