Bharti Infratel gets Rs 651.7 crore from anchor investors

Bharti Infratel, the tower arm of the country's leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel, has received Rs 651.7 crore from anchor investors on Monday, ahead of its initial public offer (IPO) that opens on Tuesday. The IPO will open for retail investors on Tuesday and close on Friday.

The telecom infrastructure service provider has allotted 28.3 million shares at Rs230 each to 18 anchor investors, including Sundaram Mutual Fund, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Alliance Bernstein, the company said in a statement.

The allocation is 15 per cent of the total 188.9 million shares the company intends to offload to raise Rs4,500 crore at the upper end of the price band. Bharti Infratel has set a price band of Rs210-240 a share for the initial stake sale.

Other prominent investors are Columbia Acorn International, Wanger International, Riversource Variable Series Trust, Wellington Management Company and AllianceBerstein Global Thematic Growth Fund Inc among others.

If successful, this would be India's biggest IPO since October 2010, when state-run Coal India raised Rs15,200 crore. Following which a host of tower firms such as Viom Networks and Quippo among others are expected to tap the capital market.

Bharti Infratel has more than 33,660 towers and holds a 42 per cent stake of the world's largest independent tower firm, Indus Towers. Indus Towers – a three-way joint venture between Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India – owns and operates about 110,000 towers.

Last fiscal, Bharti Infratel had posted a net profit of Rs687 crore on a turnover of Rs 9,511 crore.