Singtel Entities Offload 1.76 Per Cent Stake In Bharti Airtel For Rs 7,128 Crore

Singtel entities have jointly offloaded a 1.76 percent stake in Bharti Airtel for about Rs 7,128 crore, according to sources.

Bharti Airtel promoter Bharti Telecom Ltd has bought a 1.63 percent stake from Singtel entity Pastel Ltd for Rs 6,602 crore through an open market transaction.

According to the bulk deal data available with the National Stock Exchange (NSE), Bharti Telecom purchased 9,62,34,427 shares, amounting to a 1.63 percent stake in the company.

The shares were acquired at an average price of Rs 686 apiece, taking the transaction value to Rs 6,601.68 crore.

The shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd were sold by Pastel Ltd, a unit of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel).

According to sources, Viridian also offloaded about 1 crore shares.

''Singtel entities have jointly offloaded a total of 1.76 percent shares on Wednesday. Bharti Telecom has acquired 96 million shares while the public has acquired around 7 million shares offloaded by Singtel group firms.

''Post this transaction, public shareholding in Bharti Airtel will increase to 44.87 percent from 44.74 percent,'' a source aware of the development told PTI.

The email query sent to Bharti Airtel did not elicit any reply.

At the end of the June quarter, Bharti Telecom Ltd owned a 35.85 percent stake in the company, the shareholding pattern showed with the exchange.

Bharti Group chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal's family and Singtel are co-investors in Bharti Telecom Ltd (BTL).

Last week, Singtel announced that its affiliates have agreed to transfer approximately 3.33 percent shares to BTL for an aggregate amount of approximately 2.25 billion Singapore dollars (SGD), leaving direct shareholding of Singtel and Bharti in Airtel at around 10 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Singtel at present holds a 50.56 percent stake in Bharti Telecom and the Mittalfamily holds 49.44 percent.

Bharti Telecom at present holds a 35.85 percent stake in the country's second-largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel.

Shares of Bharti Airtel were trading 2.36 percent higher at Rs 770.85 apiece on BSE.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without any modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)