Bharti Airtel Raises $310 Million Through Share Sale in Tower Unit

Mumbai: Bharti Airtel, India's biggest mobile phone operator by users, said on Thursday it had raised $310 million through a secondary share sale in its mobile tower unit Bharti Infratel Ltd.

Bharti Airtel will use the funds primarily to reduce debt, the company said in a statement. Its equity holding in Bharti Infratel has reduced to 71.9 per cent following the deal, it said.

Bharti Airtel, headed by billionaire Sunil Mittal, and around a third owned by Singapore Telecommunications, had net debt of nearly $11 billion as of end-December 2014.

The company said it divested 55 million shares in the unit at a price of Rs 350 a share, a 3.7 per cent discount to the Bharti Infratel stock's last 30-day average closing price.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the company was looking at raising as much as $415 million through the sale of shares in Bharti Infratel.