BackBoard of directors restructured at Bharti Airtel, Infratel
Sunil Bharti Mittal to head the Airtel board; Rakesh Bharti Mittal at the helm of Infratel board
Premium(Pradeep Gaur/Mint)
N ew Delhi: India’s largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel Ltd, which is in the process of securing regulatory approvals for the listing of its telecom tower arm, Bharti Infratel Ltd, informed BSE Ltd on Thursday, that it had restructured the boards of both companies.
“The changes have been effected in view of the proposed IPO (initial public offering) of Bharti Infratel," a statement from the company said. The exercise is “in line with high standards of corporate governance set by Bharti Airtel, there will now be separate representation for Bharti and SingTel on the two boards."
Following the restructuring exercise, the board of Airtel consists of Sunil Bharti Mittal (chairman and managing director), Ajay Lal, Chua Sock Koong, Craig Ehrlich, Manoj Kohli, Manish Kejriwal, N. Kumar, Nikesh Arora, Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, Pulak Prasad, Rajan Bharti Mittal, Tan Yong Choo and Tsun-yan Hsieh.
Kejriwal, managing partner of private equity fund Kedaara Capital Advisors Llp., and Ezekwesili, former World Bank vice-president for Africa, are new appointees.
The Infratel board consists of Rakesh Bharti Mittal (chairman), Akhil Gupta (vice-chairman and managing director), Bharat S. Raut, Jitender Balakrishnan, N. Kumar, Sanjay Nayar, Sarvjit Singh Dhillon and Vinod Kumar Dhall.
According to its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) filed with the stock market regulator, Bharti Infratel is looking to raise around ₹ 5,000 crore and will use the proceeds to set up 4,813 new telecom transmission towers and upgrade existing ones in the next three years.
The IPO will constitute an offer of 188.9 million shares, comprising a fresh issue of 146.2 million equity shares by the company and an offer for the sale of 42.6 million shares by existing shareholders. It has proposed to use about ₹ 1,086 crore of the proceeds for the installation of 4,813 towers across seven circles.
Infratel has more than 33,000 towers in 18 states. The company holds a 42% stake in Indus Towers Ltd, a joint venture of Bharti, Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd.
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