$ 300 mn. Investment
Bharti Airtel Ltd., Asia’s leading integrated telecoms services provider recently announced that it has agreed to acquire 70% stake in Warid Telecom, Bangladesh, currently a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dhabi Group.
Warid Telecom offers mobile services across all the 64 districts in Bangladesh and has a total customer base of over 2.9 million.
Bharti Airtel’s 70% acquisition would be partly by buying existing shares held in Warid Telecom International Ltd. by Dhabi Group for a nominal consideration and balance by way of issue of fresh shares at par.
Under the agreement, Bharti Airtel will make a fresh investment of U.S.$ 300 million to expand Warid Telecom’s operations and will have management and board control of the company. This is the largest investment in Bangladesh by an Indian company. Dhabi Group will continue as a strategic partner, retaining 30% shareholding and have their nominees on Company’s Board.
The new funding will be used for expansion of the network, both for coverage and capacity, and introduction of “innovative” products and services. As a result of this additional investment, the overall investment in the company will be in the region of U.S.$ one billion.
Bharti Airtel Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Bharti Mittal said, “This landmark deal underlines our intent to further expand our operations to international markets It is a symbol of the growing economic cooperation between South Asian countries and we would like to thank the Government of India and Bangladesh for their support and encouragement.”
“Bangladesh, with a population of over 160 million and teledensity of 32% is a promising market for telecoms services. Bharti is keen to work in Bangladesh and contribute to achieving the vision of Digital Bangladesh even sooner than 2021. In the area of mobile commerce, health, education, agriculture, m-entertainment to customers. In particular, we look to leverage our experience in taking mobile telephony into rural areas and expand our services to the deepest pockets of Bangladesh and double the teledensity in a few years,” he added.
This will be Bharti Airtel’s second operation outside of India. The company launched its mobile services in Sri Lanka in January 2009 on a “state-of-the-art” 3.5G network. The company crossed the one million customers’ mark within six months of launch in Sri Lanka on the back of “innovative” offerings as well as expansion of network coverage and distribution.
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