A person makes use of his cellphone as he passes by a signage of Airtel on the India Cellular Congress 2025 in Delhi, India, on October 11, 2025. (Picture by Kabir Jhangiani/NurPhoto by way of Getty Photographs)
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India’s second-largest telecom firm, Bharti Airtel, is doubling down on its Africa and U.Okay. bets, becoming a member of a rising variety of corporations from the South Asian nation that need to broaden their world footprints.
Bharti Airtel on Thursday sought shareholders’ approval to extend its stake within the U.Okay-listed Airtel Africa to 79% from round 62.7% in a cashless share-swap deal, price 282.22 billion rupees ($2.9 billion), the Indian agency mentioned in an trade submitting.
Africa is a “high-growth potential” marketplace for the Indian firm and accounts for over 1 / 4 of Bharti Airtel’s consolidated income within the monetary yr ending March 2026, it added.
Bharti can be looking for to lift its stake in British multinational telecommunications agency BT to simply below 30% from 24.95% to realize additional “financial publicity,” however not an entire takeover, Reuters mentioned in a report Friday.
“It may improve its stake to as a lot as 29.9% to acquire better financial publicity to BT, however doesn’t plan to pursue a full takeover,” based on the report. A Bharti spokesperson informed Reuters that the corporate “at the moment has no plans to extend its stake.”
BT Group and Bharti Airtel didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
The reported transfer comes at a time when abroad inventory markets are outperforming native indices, with the FTSE 100 having risen almost 19% over the previous one yr, whereas the Indian benchmark index Nifty 50 is down greater than 4%.
Bharti Airtel, India’s third-largest firm by market capitalization, is amongst a number of giant Indian corporates exploring abroad investments.
On a 12-month trailing foundation ending in January 2026, abroad funding by Indian corporations rose to $35.8 billion, 2.6 instances greater over two years, world brokerage Morgan Stanley mentioned in a analysis word final month.
Bharti first invested in Africa in 2010, when it acquired telecom operations of Zain for $10.7 billion. Within the final yr, the share of Airtel Africa, which gives telecommunications and cell cash providers in 14 international locations in sub-Saharan Africa, has risen over 78%, based on knowledge from LSEG.
The deliberate IPO of Airtel Cellular Commerce B.V., a key subsidiary of Airtel Africa, may unlock “vital worth” within the close to future, Bharti mentioned within the submitting.
Bharti’s funding in BT has paid off as properly. It acquired a 24.5% stake in BT in 2024 for almost $4 billion, and since then, the shares of the British telecom group have risen 55%. In the meantime, shares of Bharti Airtel are up simply 3.4% during the last yr.
