Sunil Bharti Mittal charts Airtel succession with 51% promoter stake goal

Promoter shareholding in Bharti Telecom to rise to over 51% through buybacks, dividends

Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Thursday said he wanted promoter ownership in Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom services provider, to rise above 51 per cent as he prepared to eventually hand over control of the group to the next generation over the next decade. 

Mittal, who briefly joined the Airtel’s earnings call for the quarter ended March 2026, surprising analysts, said promoter holdings should increasingly consolidate under Bharti Telecom (BTL), the group’s founding promoter entity, through what he described as “twin levers” of buybacks and sustained dividend payouts. 

In laying out the strategy, Mittal, 68, also took aim at Indian IT companies for relying heavily on buybacks and dividends without pursuing acquisitions to strengthen their core businesses and position in global markets, saying Airtel would avoid that approach. 

 

The detailed remarks came as he outlined a broader plan to raise Bharti Telecom’s stake in the telecom operator while continuing to expand the group’s operations, including in Africa. 

“My wish is that — in the next decade as I, kind of, come to a point where I hand over the reins to the next generation, Bharti Telecom should get back to a controlling shareholding of 51 per cent, or just over 50 per cent; so that’s 10 per cent more to go, and for a company of this magnitude and size that is not a small task,” he said while responding to analyst questions. 

Bharti Telecom currently holds 40.47 per cent in Airtel, the flagship telecom company founded by Mittal in 1976, which has since diversified into satellite communications, financial services and other businesses. Bharti Telecom, the Mittal family-owned Indian Continent Investment Ltd (ICIL), Singtel-backed Pastel and other promoter entities together own 48.87 per cent of Airtel. 

Bharti Enterprises Holding and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd hold 50.56 per cent and 49.44 per cent, respectively, in Bharti Telecom. 

“The principal direction or vision... is all shares that we can (get) from both ICIL or Bharti family entities, and Singtel should go into Bharti Telecom as much as possible,” he said. “Bharti Telecom should be the controlling promoting shareholder.” 

On Wednesday, Airtel’s board approved an increase in its holding in Airtel Africa through a ₹28,200 crore share-swap transaction. Under the deal, Airtel will issue 146.8 million shares to promoter-group entity ICIL on a preferential basis. 

As part of the transaction, ICIL will acquire a 16.3 per cent stake in Airtel Africa Plc, increasing Airtel’s indirect ownership in the African business to 79.04 per cent. ICIL’s direct stake in Airtel could rise to as much as 3.25 per cent from less than 1 per cent currently. The residual holding of promoter entities outside Bharti Telecom would increase to around 10.6 per cent, including stakes held by the Mittal family and Singtel. 

Mittal said Singapore-based Singtel, which directly owns about 7 per cent in Airtel, still had around 6 per cent available to sell in order to align its shareholding with Bharti Telecom. Following the latest transaction, that gap would narrow to about 3.6 per cent, potentially allowing Singtel to pare its holding gradually over the next three to four years at less than 1 per cent annually. 

Higher cash generation at Airtel would be critical to strengthening Bharti Telecom’s financial capacity for future buybacks and dividend flows. 

“The idea would be to keep using those twin levers to get BTL above the 50 per cent stake. That'll be my cherished desire. Our stake must go back to BTL. For that, I need a little bit more lever in the hands of BTL, which I'm hoping will be delivered through continuously enhanced dividend, and hopefully in the next couple of years, some buybacks in addition to the dividend, and that will give us the necessary capacity in BTL to buy more,” the chairman of Bharti Enterprises said. 

Based on Airtel’s current market value of about ₹11.5 trillion, Bharti Telecom would need to invest roughly ₹1 trillion to raise its stake in the company by another 10 percentage points. Airtel shares closed 5.3 per cent higher at ₹1,883.25 on the BSE on Thursday. 

Mittal, who was reappointed chairman of Airtel for another five-year term beginning in October, also said the company aimed to increase its stake in Airtel Africa over the next seven to eight years to as much as 90 per cent, the maximum permitted under UK regulations. “The ambition for Airtel should be to go up to 90 per cent one day, and that is being ably helped by Airtel Africa’s own buyback programme.” 

“We'll do dividends and buybacks, but we’ll never become like IT companies which have done nothing but just taken money out as dividends and buybacks, and become a shadow of themselves,” he said. “Many of those companies should have been buying leading-edge businesses in their own industry over the past 10-15 years... They would have been in a different position today.” 

Mittal added no international acquisition was currently under consideration, though Airtel’s overall subscriber base crossing 800 million users was “not far away”. Airtel crossed 650 million subscribers in April, across all its markets.