 "Singtel to sell 47.6 million Bharti Airtel shares worth $1 bn on Friday")
Singapore-based telco Singtel is expected to sell Bharti Airtel shares worth $1 billion (₹8,568 crore) on Friday through a scheduled block deal, sources said on Thursday. Singtel is looking to sell 47.6 million shares at a floor price of ₹1,800 per share, they added.
The floor price represents a 3.3 per cent discount to the current market price of Bharti Airtel’s stock. JP Morgan is likely to be the broker for the deal.
Airtel shares rose 1.58 per cent to ₹1,863.1 in intraday trading on Thursday.
Currently, Singtel holds a direct 9.5 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel through its affiliate, Pastel Ltd. Cumulatively, it holds a 29 per cent indirect interest in Airtel through its 49.44 per cent stake in Bharti Telecom Ltd (BTL), the primary promoter entity of Airtel. BTL owns 40.47 per cent of Airtel, while the Mittal family holds a 2.47 per cent direct stake through another promoter entity, Indian Continent Investment Ltd (ICIL).
Friday’s sale will be the first major change for Singtel’s stake in Airtel since March last year, when it had sold a 0.8 per cent stake through 49 million shares to US investment management company GQG Partners for $711 million. SBI Pension, SBI Life, and ICICI Prudential were among the major domestic buyers.
Before this, Pastel had divested a 1.59 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel for ₹7,261 crore through an open market transaction in November 2022. This came three months after Singtel sold a 3.3 per cent stake in the firm to BTL for ₹12,895 crore or $1.6 billion in August 2022.
The upcoming block deal will be the first major change in Airtel’s ownership since February, when ICIL had sold 0.84 per cent of its stake by offloading 51.1 million shares through a market transaction for an aggregate ₹8,485.11 crore. The block deal had seen BTL anchor the trade by acquiring 12 million shares or 24 per cent of ICIL’s sale.
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