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Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal’s conglomerate has agreed to buy a 24.5 per cent stake in BT Group from Patrick Drahi’s Altice, saying the investment was a vote of confidence in the telecoms group and the UK.
Bharti Enterprises said on Monday its international investment arm would buy 10 per cent of BT’s shares from Altice immediately and purchase the remainder after it had secured the necessary regulatory approvals.
The conglomerate owns Bharti Airtel, a telecoms group with more than 400mn customers in India and extensive operations in Africa. Bharti Airtel emerged as India’s second-largest telecom company following a brutal price war instigated by rival billionaire Mukesh Ambani in 2016.
Bharti said it supported BT’s executive team and strategy, and did not intend to make an offer for the entire company.
“I’ve been watching BT for long, long years, it’s a company which has a glorious past, has national status, has this tremendous amount of physical infrastructure in the UK,” Mittal said on a call with reporters on Monday.
“So I hope that I can add some value to their thinking . . . we are long term, this is not a stock market operation and we are not in this for making a buck.”
The stake in BT was worth about £3.2bn at Friday’s closing price and the disposal comes as Altice sells assets to reduce a more than $60bn debt pile amassed during the era of cheap money.
BT shares jumped 7 per cent at the start of trading on Monday.
Altice, an investment conglomerate controlled by billionaire Drahi, first took a stake in BT in 2021, acquiring a 12 per cent holding which it later increased to 24.5 per cent. BT’s shares have fallen by about a third since Altice first became an investor.
The move to exit BT is the latest effort by Drahi to cut Altice’s debt. In March, it sold a news channel and a radio station to shipping magnate Rodolphe Saadé. Last week, Drahi partnered with Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund ADQ to give a $1bn capital injection to auction house Sotheby’s.
The arrival of Bharti as a shareholder comes just over six months after Allison Kirkby became chief executive of BT. When she took over, Kirkby said that the company would cut another £3bn of costs and increase its dividend after BT had hit its original target for savings ahead of schedule.
Karen Egan, a senior telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis, described Mittal as a “completely different kettle of fish to Patrick Drahi”.
“[Mittal] is not short-term. He’ll be completely constructive and collaborative with BT, he really understands the holistic approach of telecoms,” she said.
She added that taking a stake in BT was not an obvious move for the company but Mittal’s experience will have given him an understanding of where BT needs to focus.
Mittal is the second high-profile shareholder BT has gained this year, after it was revealed in June that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim had taken a 3 per cent stake.
Kirkby said on Monday: “We welcome investors who recognise the long-term value of our business, and this scale of investment from Bharti Global is a great vote of confidence in the future of BT Group and our strategy.”
Bharti Airtel’s Mumbai-listed shares were up 0.5 per cent on Monday and have advanced 43 per cent so far this year, beating the 10 per cent rise of India’s benchmark BSE Sensex index.
Additional reporting by Rachel Banning-Lover
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