Bharti Airtel sings African tune

Bharti Airtel announced that its  African unit has appointed global investment banks for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) on an international stock exchange. It has appointed are J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, BofA Merrill Lynch, Absa Group Limited, Barclays Bank PLC, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs International and Standard Bank Group.

This follows the recent subscription of shares in Airtel Africa by six leading global investors comprising of Warburg Pincus, Temasek, Singtel, SoftBank Group International and others for an aggregate consideration of USD 1.25 Billion.

The financial performance of Airtel Africa continues to improve, having turned positive in terms of net profit and operating free cash flow. As reported in the October 2018 Quarterly Report, during the second quarter ending 30 September 2018, Airtel Africa’s revenues grew in constant currency by 10.8% Y-o-Y, led by growth in data and Airtel money transactions. Mobile data traffic expanded by 53% to 89 Bn MBs Y-o-Y. While data customer base increased by 32.1% to 27.1 Mn, Airtel Money customer base increased to 12.9 Mn, boosting the total transaction value on Airtel Money platform by 31% to $ 6.3 billion. The Company also witnessed an improvement of EBITDA margin by 3.9% Y-o-Y to 37.1%.

The stock price of Bharti Airtel, reacting to this news, rose over 3% to Rs.338.25.