In a statement Monday, Bharti said it has no intention of making an offer to buy control of Britain’s largest broadband and mobile firm. Bharti is also not seeking a board seat, chairman Sunil Mittal told reporters.
The purchase will be made by Bharti Global, which is the international arm of Bharti Enterprises, through Bharti Televentures. As per the terms of the deal, Bharti Televentures has acquired a 9.99% stake in BT Group’s issued capital via open market trade. It will buy the remaining 14.51% after getting regulatory clearances. Mittal expects the deal to close in the coming months.
“Funding is done by Bharti Global… Barclays has been the financial adviser for this transaction, and they provided some immediate cash,” Mittal said.
Neither Mittal nor Bharti Enterprises specified the valuation of the stake buy. But Mittal said the price was attractive and that BT was a $25 billion revenue and $10 billion ebitda company. He pointed to BT’s current market cap for an indicative cost of the stake.
The BT stock surged 6.44% to 138.95 pounds on Tuesday, giving it a market cap of about 13 billion pounds ($16.6 billion), from which the figure of $4 billion was derived. The market cap of Bharti Airtel, Bharti Enterprises’ telecom unit, stood at Rs 8,30,663.68 crore at close of trade Monday.
“I want Indian companies to become multinational. They should have their arms elsewhere too,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X, referring to the Bharti-BT deal.
Bharti is also applying voluntarily for UK National Security and Investment Act clearance, the company said in the statement.
“This investment demonstrates the confidence we have in BT and in the UK,” Mittal said in the statement. “BT has a strong portfolio of market leading brands, high-quality assets and an experienced management team with a compelling strategy mandated by the BT Board to deliver value over the long term, which we fully support.”
