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Vodafone has put its 4.39% indirect stake in India’s Bharti Airtel up for sale in a move which could potentially raise $2 billion for the company.
Vodafone brought an indirect 4.39% stake in Bharti Airtel through Bharti Enterprises Private, and a 5.61% direct stake from private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC. This move gave Vodafone 10% of Airtel for which they paid $1.5 billion. Later on in 2007, Vodafone acquired a controlling stake in rival operator – Hutchison Essar, after which it has sold the direct stake of Bharti Airtel to the Bharti Group for $1.6 billion.
In that sense, the Big Red now wants to get rid of the rest of its Bharti Airtel’s stake, and potential buyer is Singapore’s SingTel, which recently increased stake in the operator. SingTel’s representatives, however, declined to comment.
Vodafone’s Vittorio Colao commented to the Economic Times: “No company will be happy with a small minority stake in another entity. If anybody is interested in buying our stake, we are for it.”
[Via: CellularNews]
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
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