Bharti to take 70 per cent stake in Bangladesh’s Warid Telecom

Bharti Airtel says it is taking a 70-per cent stake in Bangladesh-based Warid Telecom.

Bharti plans to make $300 million fresh investment in the company, to take the overall investment to $1 billion. The new funding will cover capacity expansion, coverage and development of innovative products.

Warid Telecom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dhabi group offers mobile services across Bangladesh's 64 districts and has a total customer base of over 2.9 million. The group will continue to remain a strategic partner with the balance 30 per cent stake.

Bharti Airtel says it plans to fund the acquisition partly through existing shares purchase held in Warid Telecom International by Dhabi Group for a nominal consideration and the remainder by way of issue of fresh shares at par.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director, Bharti Airtel

Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director, Bharti Airtel said, the landmark deal underlined the company's intent to further expand its operations to international markets where its unique business model could be implanted to offer quality and affordable telecom services
He added that, at the same time, the deal a was symbol of the growing economic cooperation between the South Asian countries and the company would like to thank the government of India and Bangladesh for their support and encouragement.

This will be Bharti's second acquistion outside India after its foray in Sri Lanka in January 2009 when it launched its mobile services there on a state-of-art 3.5G network.