Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s largest telecom operator by subscriber numbers, has acquired a 70 per cent stake in Bangladesh’s Warid Telecom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi’s Dhabi Group.
Under the agreement, Bharti Airtel will make a fresh investment of $300 million to expand Warid Telecom’s operations, while it will get management and board control of the company.This will be Bharti Airtel’s second operation outside of India. The company launched its mobile services in Sri Lanka in January 2009.
Warid Telecom offers mobile services across all the 64 districts of Bangladesh and has a total customer base of over 2.9 million.Dhabi Group will continue as a strategic partner retaining 30 per cent shareholding and have their nominees on the Board of the Company.
“This landmark deal underlines our intent to further expand our operations to international markets where we can implant our unique business model and offer quality and affordable telecom services. At the same time, it is a symbol of the growing economic cooperation between the South Asian countries and we would like to thank the Government of India and Bangladesh for their support and encouragement,” Bharti Airtel Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Bharti Mittal said.
