Bharti close to raising funds for MTN deal: report
Bharti close to raising funds for MTN deal: report
New Delhi: Bharti Airtel Ltd has received bids from at least a dozen foreign banks, including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase and Co., to fund its proposed stake buy in South Africa’s MTN Group, ‘The Economic Times’ reported on Tuesday.
Bharti and MTN are in exclusive merger talks till 31 August for a complex cash and stock deal, which would see MTN and its shareholders taking a 36% economic interest in Bharti and Bharti ending up with 49% in MTN.
Brokerages had expected net cash outflow of about $4 billion from Bharti after initial terms were announced in May, but the firms said on 3 August the terms and the structure of the deal might be adjusted.
The newspaper cited investment bankers as saying Bharti was looking at an overseas loan of around $3-3.5 billion and a rupee funding equivalent to about $1.5-2 billion. Bharti is likely to decide on the banks by the middle of this week and finalise the financing by 29 August, it said. A spokesman for Bharti Airtel declined comment. Earlier sources had told ‘Reuters’ that Bharti was looking to raise up to $4 billion in debt.
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