Indian Continent Investment Ltd (ICIL), a promoter-group entity of Bharti Airtel Ltd (Airtel), on Tuesday sold around 0.84 per cent or 5.11 crore shares of the telco through an open market transaction for ₹8,485.11 crore. ICIL is the holding company of Sunil Bharti Mittal family.
Bharti Telecom, the main promoter of Airtel, anchored the trade by acquiring close to 1.20 crore shares which translated to 24 per cent of the ICIL’s stake sale.
Bharti Airtel said in a regulatory filing that the overall book was allocated only to key marquee long-only names, both global and domestic.
For the quarter ended December 31, 2024, Bharti Telecom held 40.31 per cent of Bharti Airtel. Following today’s deal, its stake will rise to nearly 40.50 per cent.
Airtel said that the transaction follows Bharti Telecom’s recent acquisition of an additional 1.2 per cent stake (7.31 crore shares) in the company from ICIL in November 2024.
It added that with the latest purchase, Bharti Telecom has reinforced its previously stated intent of strengthening its position as the principal vehicle to hold a controlling stake in Airtel. It will focus on gradually increasing its stake while maintaining a prudent leverage profile.
GQG Partners and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Nordea Funds have bought shares from ICIL.
WhiteOak Capital Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential MF, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments also bought the shares of Airtel.
Melbourne-based AustralianSuper, Vanguard, Reliance Trust Company and SBI Life Insurance Company, among others were also entities who have picked up shares, according to the block deal data on the NSE.
India’s second largest telco had reported a more than five-fold jump in consolidated net profit to ₹16,134.6 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2024 against ₹2,876.4 crore in the year-ago period.
The company recorded revenues of ₹45,129.3 crore which was about 19 per cent higher than ₹37,899.5 crore in the same quarter of the previous year.
Bharti Airtel had said that its performance was driven by strong momentum in India and continued underlying growth in constant currency in Africa. During the quarter, its India revenues came in at ₹34,654 crore, thus showing an increase of 24.6 per cent over the previous year and 9 per cent sequentially.
