Airtel shareholders approve Google investment, Rs 1.17 lakh Cr biz deals with group firms

Team Udayavani, Feb 28, 2022, 8:47 AM IST

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New Delhi: Bharti Airtel shareholders have approved the issue of preferential shares to Google for its about Rs 7,500 crore investment in the company to buy a 1.28 percent stake.

A special resolution to approve Google’s investment was approved by over 99 percent of the shareholders, according to the voting result of an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) filed by Airtel on Sunday.

The EGM of the company was held on February 26.

Internet giant Google last month announced investments worth USD 1 billion or about Rs 7,500 crore in Bharti Airtel, which includes equity investment as well as a corpus for potential commercial agreements, to be identified and agreed on mutually agreeable terms over the course of the next five years.

Google made the investment as part of its Google for India Digitization Fund.

The investment comprises USD 700 million equity investment in Bharti Airtel at a price per share of Rs 734 and USD 300 million will go towards implementing commercial agreements, which will include investments in scaling Airtel’s offerings that cover a range of devices to consumers via innovative affordability programmes as well as other offerings aimed at accelerating access and digital inclusion across India’s digital ecosystem.

Bharti Airtel’s proposal to spend Rs 1.17 lakh crore in business transactions with subsidiaries — Indus Towers, Nxtra, and Bharti Hexacom — was also approved by the majority of the shareholders.

According to the EGM’s agenda, Bharti Airtel has plans to invest Rs 88,000 crore in business with mobile tower company Indus Towers, Rs 15,000 crore for availing the services of datacentre firm Nxtra, and transactions of up to Rs 14,000 crore with Bharti Hexacom.

Bharti Airtel will invest up to Rs 17,000 crore on transactions with Indus Towers in the next four financial years and Rs 20,000 crore in 2025-26.

The company had cited 5G developments globally and in India as the main reasons to invest heavily in the telecom infrastructure firm.

Considering the increased requirements of passive infrastructure during 5G network rollouts, Airtel plans to invest a higher amount of up to Rs 20,000 crore with Indus Towers during the financial year 2025-26.