Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) plans to sell its stake in Bharti Hexacom in two tranches of 15% each, to meet a target set out by the Centre.
“We are going ahead as per the strategy, to meet the target set out by the government. TCIL will sell only 15% stake in Bharti Hexacom now, and another 15% at an opportune time within the next six months,” a senior official told ET.
On Tuesday, Bharti Airtel’s unit Bharti Hexacom, in which TCIL holds a 30% stake, received the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) approval for Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Initially, the public sector company sought to offload 20% of the equity in Bharti Hexacom, but according to the sources, it has now withdrawn the application and informed the telecom department (DoT) about its plans to divest 15% equity for now.
Sunil Mittal-driven telco Bharti Airtel holds a 70% stake or 35 crore shares and the remaining 30% shareholding, equivalent to 15 crore equity shares is held by non-promoter TCIL, as per the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).
Now, the state-owned company will offload 7.5 crore shares in Bharti Hexacom through the public offering.
Following the company’s valuation target range of Rs 28,000 crore – Rs 35,000 crore, the public sector firm would be able to achieve the expected figure by way of offloading equity in two batches.
Queries to TCIL and Bharti Airtel did not elicit any response.
Source: Economic Times