Bharti raises Rs1,925 cr from Infratel stake sale

The company added that the shares were allocated to global investors in tower companies, fund managers and long-term funds, including many repeat investors.

Bharti Airtel, promoter of the tower company Bharti Infratel, on Thursday sold 5.5 crore shares aggregating to 2.91 per cent of total paid up share capital of the firm to raise $310 million (Rs 1,925 crore) on Thursday, a development that comes days ahead of the 2G spectrum auction on March 4.

As a result of the sale, the promoter holding in the company came down from 74.85 per cent to 71.9 per cent.

“An overall demand of $440 million (1.42 times of base deal size) across the US, Europe and Asia… The allocation was at Rs 350 per share — a discount of 3.7 per cent to last 30 day average closing price,” said Bharti Airtel in a statement.

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The company added that the shares were allocated to global investors in tower companies, fund managers and long-term funds, including many repeat investors.

While shares of Bharti Airtel were marginally up on Thursday, that of Bharti Infratel fell by 6.3 per cent during the day before recovering to close at Rs 367.3, a fall of 0.94 per cent. While market sources said that the company was preparing for the spectrum auction, the Bharti Airtel said in its statement that the proceeds would be utilised to ‘reduce debt’. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS were brokers to the transaction.