Bharti Airtel on Wednesday bought around 1% stake in Indus Towers, by acquiring around 26.95 million shares, thus raising its stake to 48.95% from 47.95% it held earlier.
The shares were acquired by Bharti as UK’s Vodafone Plc sold an 18% stake in the tower firm for 1.7 billion euro (about Rs 15,300 crore). The shares were sold at Rs 310-341.
UK’s Vodafone, owned a 21.5% stake in the tower firm, and had initially planned to sell a 10% stake but strong investor demand promoted it to nearly double the sale size, sources said. Following the transaction, Vodafone’s stake comes down to 3.1%.
The company will use the major portion of the proceeds to pay 1.8 billion euro outstanding bank borrowings taken against Vodafone’s assets in India.
Shares of Indus Towers on Wednesday closed down 2.88% at Rs 334 on BSE.