Bharti Airtel via its wholly owned subsidiary, Nettle Infrastructure Investments, today announced the successful divestment of 83 million shares of its subsidiary Bharti Infratel through a secondary share sale in the stock market (NSE, BSE).

The sale was for a total consideration of over Rs 33.25 billion (USD 510 million) and was executed at a price of Rs. 400.6 a share, representing a discount of c. 3.6% to the previous day's closing price. The allocation was done to global investors, fund managers and long only funds, including many repeat investors. Led by healthy investor appetite, the deal was upsized by over 25%.

Bharti Airtel will primarily use the proceeds from this sale to reduce its debt. Following the closure of this transaction, Bharti Airtel and its wholly owned subsidiaries together have an equity holding of 53.51% in Bharti Infratel.

J.P. Morgan, UBS and Goldman Sachs were joint placement agents for the transaction.

Shares of the company declined Rs 4.9, or 0.97%, to trade at Rs 499.00. The total volume of shares traded was 111,070 at the BSE (1.27 p.m., Tuesday).