Bharti Airtel to invest over Rs 1,600 crore in Mauritius arm; plans issuance of Rs 10,000 crore in NCDs

Bharti Airtel on Monday said that the company had sent out a notice to its shareholders seeking approval for issuing bonds and a transfer of investment in wholly-owned subsidiaries.

The company plans to transfer its entire investment, nearly 360.50 crore equity shares in its wholly-owned subsidiaries namely  Bharti Airtel International (Mauritius) Limited (“BAIM”). 

It said in the notice, "Bharti Airtel wants to transfer its entire investment (i.e. 3,604,970,000 shares) in Bharti Airtel International (Mauritius) Limited, Mauritius to its another wholly-owned subsidiary Network i2i Limited, Mauritius in one or more tranches for a consideration not exceeding $250 million."

The announcement came soon after Airtel merged its Mauritius subsidiary with Network i2i Limited. 

On February 08, 2017, " Bharti Airtel in a filing with the stock exchanges said that its subsidiaries Bharti Airtel International (Mauritius) Limited (BAIM), Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) (BAIN) and Bharti International (Singapore) Pte Limited (BISPL) will now be held entirely by Network i2i Limited, Mauritius."

On the day, the board approved Bharti Airtel's investment in its wholly-owned subsidiaries Bharti Airtel (USA) Limited, Bharti Airtel (Hong Kong) Limited and Bharti Airtel (UK) Limited. These three investments will be made through its Singapore subsidiary. 

Moreover, Airtel also plans to issue non-convertible debentures aggregating to an amount up to Rs 10,000 via private placement.

It said in a statement, “Bharti Airtel plans to issue, from time to time, in one or more tranches the unsecured/secured redeemable Non- Convertible Debentures including but not limited to bonds and/or other debt securities (‘NCDs’), denominated in Indian rupees, aggregating to an amount not exceeding Rs. 10,000 Crores on a private placement basis, during the period of one year from the date of approval.”

Recently, Bharti Airtel reported drop of 55% to Rs 503.7 crore in Q3FY17, as against Rs 1,108 crore in the same period of last year.

At 11.11 am, shares of Bharti Airtel was trading flat at Rs 357.90 per piece on BSE.