Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said its subsidiary has acquired an additional 6.3 per cent stake in Bangladesh operator Robi Axiata from NTT Docomo for an undisclosed sum.
The stake of Bharti International (Singapore) — the wholly-owned subsidiary of Bharti Airtel — in Robi Axiata will rise to 31.3 per cent from 25 per cent, the company said.
Airtel did not disclose the value of the deal. It said the acquisition of the ordinary shares was done at mutually-agreed valuation. “The said valuation is non-material and is not disclosed herein due to reasons of confidentiality.”
The transaction has been cleared by the Bangladesh telecom regulator.
The latest deal comes on the heels of Bharti Telecom, the promoter company of Bharti Airtel, raising Rs 8,433 crore last month by selling a 2.75 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel to a clutch of global investors such as Blackrock, Seganti Capital, Norges Bank and Key Square Capital besides local fund houses such as HDFC Mutual Fund and SBI Mutual Fund.
The proceeds equivalent to $1.15 billion will make Bharti Telecom a zero-debt company, providing it with greater financial flexibility and capacity to offer any additional shareholder support.
Robi Axiata is the second largest mobile player in Bangladesh. It is a subsidiary company of Axiata Investments (Labuan) Limited, which is an arm of Axiata Group Berhad, based in Malaysia.
It is the second largest mobile network operator in Bangladesh with 47 million subscribers as of end of December 2018.
The company commenced operation in 1997 as Telekom Malaysia International (Bangladesh) with the brand name ‘Aktel’. In 2010, it was rebranded as ‘Robi’ and the company changed its name to Robi Axiata Limited, according to the firm’s website.
Following the merger with Airtel Bangladesh, the merged company, Robi Axiata Limited (Robi) started its commercial operation on 16 November 2016.
As of now, this is the biggest ever merger of the country and first ever merger in the mobile telecom sector of Bangladesh.In the past few weeks the telecom sector has attracted significant investments.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has concluded deals to raise Rs 97,885.65 crore from a host of marquee investors, including Facebook, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and private equity players such as Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic and KKR.