Bharti Airtel bulk deal: Sunil Mittal-led ICIL sells stake worth ₹7,195 crore

Indian Continent Investment Ltd (ICIL) is one of the promoter entities in city-based Bharti Airtel.

According to a regulatory filing, "The transaction attracted strong interest, receiving robust orders from marquee domestic and international long-only investors. Both new and existing shareholders of Airtel participated, with the placements majorly allocated to long-only investors."

According to the bulk deal data available on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), ICIL offloaded a total of 3.43 crore shares, representing a 0.56% stake in the city-based Bharti Airtel.

The shares were disposed of at an average price of ₹2,097.81 apiece, taking the deal value to ₹7,195.49 crore.

Details of the buyers of Bharti Airtel's shares could not be ascertained on the exchange.

After the latest transaction, ICIL's holding in Bharti Airtel dropped to 0.92% from 1.48%.

The promoter entities, including Bharti Telecom Ltd and Singtel's affiliates Pastel and Viridian, hold a 50.27% stake in the telecom major at the end of the September quarter, exchange data showed.

On Wednesday, Bharti Airtel's promoter entity ICIL, in the filing, said that it has sold a 0.56% shareholding (34.30 million shares) in the flagship through a market transaction for an aggregate amount of ₹7,200 crore.

This transaction is aligned with the publicly stated position that Bharti Telecom Ltd, a Bharti-controlled group subsidiary and the promoter of Airtel, will continue to be the principal vehicle to hold a controlling stake in Airtel, it added.

Shares of Bharti Airtel fell 1.60% to close at ₹2,127 apiece on the NSE.

Bharti Airtel Q2 FY26 Results

Bharti Airtel, the country's second-largest telecom services company, on Monday, November 3, reported a net profit of ₹6,792 crore in the second quarter of the current financial year, marking an increase of 26% from ₹3,593 crore in the same period last year.

Its revenue from operations jumped 26% to ₹52,145 crore in the July-September period from ₹41,473 crore a year earlier.

In the second quarter, Bharti Airtel reported an operating profit, or EBITDA, of ₹29,919 crore, with an EBITDA margin at 57.4%.

India business EBITDA came in at ₹23,204 crore, and the EBITDA margin stood at 60%.

Bharti Airtel's average revenue per user (ARPU), a key profitability metric of a telecom company, improved to ₹256 per user per month from ₹233 in the year-ago period.

Bharti Airtel: Other updates

Earlier this month, Singtel said it had sold about a 0.8% stake in Bharti Airtel for ₹10,353 crore (SGD 1.5 billion), as it continues to proactively optimise its portfolio through asset recycling.

In August this year, ICIL divested nearly a 1% stake in telecom carrier Bharti Airtel for ₹11,227 crore.

In February, Bharti Airtel announced that ICIL had sold Airtel shares worth about ₹8,485.11 crore through a market transaction.

_With PTI inputs _