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Highlights
- In line with what Sunil Bharti Mittal had said earlier this year, Airtel is now getting more control over its subsidiaries.
- This helps the companies in taking faster decisions and helps streamline management too.
- Bharti Airtel increased its stake in Airtel Africa by 16.31% recently.
Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks
In line with what Sunil Bharti Mittal had said earlier this year, Airtel is now getting more control over its subsidiaries. This helps the companies in taking faster decisions and helps streamline management too. Bharti Airtel increased its stake in Airtel Africa by 16.31% recently. This stake raise took the company’s total ownership in Airtel Africa to 79%, which is major. The transaction for this is estimated to be worth around Rs 28,200 crore. This was announced by Bharti Airtel via a company filing in the stock exchanges on Tuesday.
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Before this transaction, Airtel owned around 62.73% stake in Airtel Africa. In the exchange filing, Airtel said, “The company completed the acquisition of 595,204,251 shares (around 16.3 per cent stake) of Airtel Africa, from ICIL on June 22, 2026. Consequently, the company’s effective stake in Airtel Africa has increased to around 79 per cent.”
Note that for this, money was not transacted by the telco, protecting its cashflow. Airtel took these shares of Airtel Africa from one of its promoter group entities, Indian Continent Investment Limited (ICIL). So, for this stake, Airtel issued ICIL preferential shares in the company. It is basically a share swap, which protects the interests of the companies. It protects the cashflow and allows the telco to get more control and continue its growth journey.
Airtel will be looking to get more control of its subsidiaries around the world. This will take a few years, and Sunil Mittal had said that he would eventually be stepping down, and before that, he wants the company structure to be streamlined. This will help in a smooth takeover by the next generation. Sunil Mittal had said that in the next few years, Airtel Africa will become a USD 10 billion revenue company, and that would help in generating super handsome returns. For more such updates, stay tuned to TelecomTalk in Google News.
