India’s Bharti Enterprises to buy 24.5% stake in BT from Drahi’s Altice
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Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal’s conglomerate has agreed to buy a 24.5% stake in BT Group from Patrick Drahi’s Altice, saying the investment shows confidence in the telecoms group and the UK.
Bharti Enterprises said on Monday that its international investment arm would immediately buy a 10% stake in BT from Altice and buy the rest after obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals.
The group owns Bharti Airtel, a telecom group with more than 400 million customers in India and extensive operations in Africa. Bharti Airtel emerged as India’s second-largest telecom company after a brutal price war initiated by rival billionaire Mukesh Ambani in 2016.
Bharti said it supported BT’s executive team and strategy, and did not intend to make an offer for the entire company.
“I have been following BT for many years, it is a company with a great past, it has national standing and it has a huge physical infrastructure in the UK,” Mittal said on a call with reporters on Monday.
“So I hope I can add value to their thinking… we invest for the long term, this is not a stock market activity and we are not in it for the purpose of making money.”
Shares in BT was worth about £3.2bn at Friday’s closing price and the disposal comes as Altice sells assets to reduce more than $60bn of debt accumulated during a period of cheap money.
BT shares rose 7 percent at the start of trading on Monday.
AlticeAltice, an investment group controlled by billionaire Drahi, first took a stake in BT in 2021, holding a 12% stake and then increasing it to 24.5%. BT shares have fallen by about a third since Altice first became an investor.
The move to exit BT is Drahi’s latest effort to cut Altice’s debt. In March, the company sold a news channel and a radio station to shipping tycoon Rodolphe Saadé. Last week, Altice partnered with Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund ADQ to offer $1 billion investment in auction house Sotheby’s.
Bharti’s arrival as a shareholder comes just over six months after Allison Kirkby became BT’s chief executive. When she took over, Kirkby said the company would cut a further £3bn in costs and increase its dividend after BT hit its initial savings targets ahead of schedule.
“We welcome investors recognising the long-term value of our business and this size of investment from Bharti Global is a huge vote of confidence in the future of BT Group and our strategy,” Kirkby said on Monday.
Shares of Mumbai-listed Bharti Airtel rose 0.5 percent on Monday and have risen 43 percent this year, outpacing the 10 percent gain in India’s benchmark BSE Sensex index.
