Bharti Airtel says raised $310 mln through share sale in tower unit

MUMBAI (Reuters) - 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 percent 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 350 rupees a share, a 3.7 percent 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.

($1 = 61.7600 rupees)

(Reporting by Aman Shah; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)