Mittal family, a promoter in Bharti Airtel has arranged for raising around $2 billion (around Rs 15,500 crore) via offshore/onshore credit lines with the help of around six banks. Singtel will be selling a small portion of its stake in Bharti Airtel to the Mittal family. According to an ET report, the Mittal family is talking with banks such as JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Citibank, Bank of America, and Standard Chartered for helping with raising liquid funds for the stake purchase. But the final terms with either of these banks are not firm yet but the proposed sale of the stake in Bharti Airtel by the Singtel group to the Mittal family will be done soon.
Breakdown of Holdings of Mittal Family and Singtel Group in Bharti Airtel
Note that both the Mittal family as well as the Singtel group own a stake in Bharti Airtel directly and indirectly through a promoter entity. So, first of all, there’s Bharti Telecom which holds 35.85% of Bharti Airtel. The Mittal family owns a 50.56% stake in Bharti Telecom while the remaining 49.44% is owned by the Singtel group. Then, the Mittal family and the Singtel group also own 6.04% and 14% of Bharti Airtel directly. This takes the final stakeholding of the Mittal family and the Singtel group to 24.13% and 31.72% in Bharti Airtel. Singtel has been a promoter in Bharti Airtel for decades now. As per the current market cap of Rs 3.81 lakh crore, if the Singtel family sells $2 billion worth of stake to the Mittal family, it would result in 4% of Singtel’s holdings gown down. That would most likely make the Mittal family the biggest stakeholder in the company. Airtel’s performance off late has improved and the analysts see the business of the telco booming in the coming years with uptrends in the overall revenues and profits. Airtel’s average revenue per user (ARPU) figure is also the highest in the country which means that the telco is earning the most out of each of its customers among all the competitors.
