By Urvi Malvania | Mahesh Nayak
Bharti Airtel is set for a block deal on Friday, where the promoter entity, Singapore-based Pastel, will offload approximately 0.8% (47.6 million shares) of its stake, according to a term sheet available with FE. Pastel is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel).
Shares will be offered at a floor price of Rs 1,800 each, reflecting a 3.60% discount to the Thursday’s closing price of Rs 1,867.20 on the NSE, and 3.6% lower than Rs 1,866.80 on the BSE.
This will be a secondary sale, which is valued approximately at Rs 8,568 crore. The sole placement agent is JP Morgan.
As on March 31, 2025, Pastel held a 9.49% stake in the company while the promoter shareholding was at 52.43%.
SingTel is also a shareholder in Bharti Telecom, the promoter company of Bharti Airtel.
In March 2024, Singtel sold 0.8% stake in Airtel, also via Pastel, to GCQ Partners.
Shares of Airtel, India’s second-largest telco, rose 42.55% on the NSE over the past 12 months. It was the third-best performer among the Nifty50 stocks.
Earlier this week, Airtel announced its results for the fourth quarter and FY25. Revenues for the fiscal grew 15.3% while the net profit soared 55%.
Airtel’s customer base in India grew 2.7% during FY25 to 361.6 million. With an average revenue per user (Arpu) of Rs 245 as on March 31, it leads the industry, leaving market leader Reliance Jio (Arpu at Rs 206.2) far behind.
The telco, which launched its 5G services in October 2022, currently has 135 million users on the new generation telecom technology. It also operates a direct-to-home service under its B2C arm.
Apart from mobility, Airtel also has an enterprise business vertical which provides services in cloud and data centres, along with CPaaS (communication platform as a service).