Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s largest mobile-phone operator, is considering mergers or stake sales at some of its Africa operations as it looks to cut debt and make its biggest overseas acquisition profitable.
The moves would pare the size of operations in the continent and could be completed within a year, Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said in an interview with Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Some of Bharti’s businesses in 15 African nations would be affected, he said.
Faced with an escalating price war in its home market, Bharti is looking for ways to pare net debt equivalent to about $12 billion as of September. The company has sold its Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso operations, as well as some of its tower businesses, as it reorganizes assets it bought in 2010 in a $9 billion deal with Kuwait’s largest mobile-phone operator.
Bharti’s African unit lost $91 million in the quarter ended September, compared with a $170 million loss in the previous year.
As part of the debt reduction, Bharti is also considering selling a stake in Bharti Infratel Ltd., its tower unit. A committee was studying whether the sale would be a minority stake or control of the tower unit and a decision could be taken in a month, Mittal said. In October, Bharti said in a stock exchange filing that it had formed a committee to evaluate options for its 73.5 percent stake in Bharti Infratel.
