Bharti receives $460 m from global partners

NEW DELHI: Bharti Enterprises Ltd., a telecom service provider, has announced

that it had received an additional equity investment of $460 million from its

global partners to support its ongoing and future telecom projects. The firm is

also planning to come out with an IPO in the near future to raise an additional

$200 million.

Singapore Telecom (Singtel), that has an investment of around $450 million,

has announced an additional $200 million-investment in the firm. Warburg Pincus,

a private equity investor, has also announced an investment of $200 million in

the firm.

Besides these other key investors in the current financing in Bharti, include

AIF Funds Management Ltd., with an investment of up to $35million, International

Finance Corporation with an investment of $20 million and New York Life with an

investment of $5 million.

The funds raised will be deployed to establish new mobile telecom ventures,

develop projects comprising National Long Distance Operations (NLDO) and fund

synergistic acquisitions.

Bharti Enterprises has already invested about $600 million in their existing

telecom ventures. In addition, the firm has also assigned over $1 billion

towards new projects across all segments of telecom sector.

Bharti Enterprises Group Managing director, Sunil Bharti Mittal said that now

the firm would borrow around $1 billion from the domestic market for its new

future projects. He also said the company would not invest heavily on fixed line

projects as such projects involve lots of complexities. We will now emphasize

more on our mobile telecom segment, he added.