Bharti Airtel Ltd, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Nettle Infrastructure Investments Ltd, has acquired an additional stake of 13.30 crore shares or 4.94 percent in tower company Bharti Infratel Ltd for Rs 2,882.32 crore, according to its stock exchange filing on Wednesday.

Notably, prior to the acquisition, Bharti Airtel held 23.04 percent and Nettle Infrastructure held and 13.69 percent, in Bharti lnfratel. With this acquisition, Nettle's stake increased to 18.62 percent. The aggregate shareholding of Bharti Airtel and Nettle in Bharti Infratel has increased from 36.73 percent to 41.66 percent.

The stake was acquired from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, which sold 77.08 million shares for an average of Rs 215.44, aggregating to Rs 1,660.61 crore. These were held through P5 Asia Holding Investments Mauritius Ltd and EdgePoint Global Portfolio and EdgePoint Growth & Income Portfolio, which sold 31.21 million and 18.11 million shares, respectively, for Rs 672.83 crore and Rs 390.44 crore.

Reacting to the developments, shares of Bharti Infratel which opened at Rs 226 per share reached an intraday high of Rs. 231.80 on the National stock exchange, during the morning session Thursday.
 

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