Bharti Airtel, the country?s largest telecom operator, on Thursday said it would acquire the remaining 30% in Bangladesh?s Warid Telecom to make it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the firm. In January 2010, Bharti had acquired a 70% stake in the Bangladesh arm of Warid Telecom, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Dhabi Group, for $300 million.
?Bharti Airtel Holdings (Singapore), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, and Warid Group have reached an agreement, wherein, Bharti will acquire 30% equity stake of Warid in Airtel Bangladesh,? a company statement said. With this, Bharti will own 100% of Airtel Bangladesh.
Bharti Airtel took management control of the company and its board, and rebranded the company?s services under its own Airtel brand from December 20, 2010. Bharti?s chief executive for international operations Manoj Kohli said the company plans to buy out minority partners in companies where it currently doesn?t hold control, to improve profitability. The company has about 6-7 minority partners in its 17 operations in Africa, he said.
This is also the second acquisition of stake from Warid announced in recent times ? Airtel had acquired Warid Uganda earlier this month, increasing its customer base in Uganda by 2.8 million to 7.4 million customers.
Last month, Airtel had also acquired an additional stake of 13.36% equity stake in Nigeria?s Airtel Networks. Following the acquisition, Bharti Airtel Nigeria?s stake holding in Airtel Networks increased to 79.06%.