Bharti Airtel rose 0.94% to Rs 404.30 at 11:10 IST on BSE after the company said its subsidiary divested African telecoms tower assets to Eaton Towers.
The company made the announcement during trading hours today, 8 September 2014.
Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 207.61 points, or 0.77%, to 27,234.31.
On BSE, so far 2.90 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 3.56 lakh shares in the past one quarter.
The stock hit a high of Rs 407.45 and a low of Rs 401.65 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 408.25 on 3 September 2014. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 282.10 on 24 February 2014.
The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 5 September 2014, rising 6.96% compared with 4.32% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 12.53% as against Sensex's 8.02% rise.
The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 1998.70 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.
Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa [through its subsidiary company Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV (Airtel)] and Eaton Towers, a leading independent telecoms tower company in Africa, announced an agreement for the divestment of over 3500 telecoms towers from Airtel to Eaton Towers.
Airtel will sell and lease back over 3500 towers to Eaton in 6 countries across its African operations under a 10-year contract. The pact expands Eaton Towers' coverage in Africa to 7 countries with over 5000 towers. The agreement follows Airtel's and Eaton Towers' strategies to drive cost efficiencies throughout the industry via the use of shared passive infrastructure.
The agreements will allow Airtel to focus on its core business and customers, enable it to deleverage through debt reduction, and will significantly reduce its on-going capital expenditure on passive infrastructure.
For Eaton Towers, the acquisition is a major step towards the scale needed to provide shared telecoms infrastructure solutions, with its customers benefiting from lower operating costs, expanded network coverage and capacity and improved quality of service.
The agreements are subject to statutory and regulatory approvals in the respective countries.
Commenting on the development, Manoj Kohli, Chairman, Bharti Airtel International Netherlands BV said: "We are delighted to announce this agreement, which represents the next phase of Airtel's growth journey in Africa. We are the pioneers and strong proponents of telecoms infrastructure sharing, which results in industry-wide cost efficiencies. The agreement with Eaton Towers is an extension of this philosophy and will lead to far superior utilisation of passive infrastructure and help drive the proliferation of affordable mobile services across Africa."
Alan Harper, CEO of Eaton Towers added: "This is a transformational deal which gives Eaton Towers the most diversified tower portfolio across Africa. We are proud to be chosen by Airtel as their key partner in these 6 countries."
Eaton Towers is a leading, independent, telecom tower company in Africa and will have the most diversified geographical tower portfolio in Africa. Eaton Towers acquires, builds and manages shared telecom infrastructure, leasing it to operators in Africa. The company is focused exclusively on Africa.
Bharti Airtel's consolidated net profit rose 60.9% to Rs 1108.50 crore on 12.4% rise in total income to Rs 23163.30 crore in Q1 June 2014 over Q1 June 2013.
Bharti Airtel is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 299 million customers across its operations at the end of June 2014.
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