Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to invest $250 million in Airtel subsidiary Bharti Infratel

Bharti Airtel Ltd has informed BSE that Bharti Infratel, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company on February 06, 2008 announced that leading private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) will invest $250 million in Bharti Infratel. The investment will be made by KKR's Asia dedicated private equity fund and its global private equity fund.

This is in addition to the investment of $1 billion in Bharti Infratel by leading international investors Temasek Holdings, The Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) Goldman Sachs, Macquarie, AIF Capital, Citigroup & India Equity Partners (IEP) in December 2007.

The deal places an enterprise valuation of Bharti Infratel in the range of $10 to $12.5 billion with the final valuation to be determined on the basis of Bharti Infratel's actual operating performance in FY 2008-09.

Bharti Infratel owns over 20,000 sites and holds an approximately 42-per cent stake in Indus Towers, the recently announced joint venture between Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, which has over 70,000 sites (See: Bharti, Idea, Vodafone Essar to form independent tower company).

Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers will provide passive infrastructure services to all wireless telecom operators in India on a non-discriminatory basis. Sharing of passive infrastructure results in capex and opex savings and higher capital efficiency for all wireless operators, enabling quicker roll out of services, especially in rural areas, thus benefiting millions of people across India.