Singtel Arm Pastel Sells 1.59 Percent Stake in Bharti Airtel for Nearly Rs. 7,300 Crore

Pastel, an entity of Singtel, on Thursday divested 1.59 percent stake in Bharti Airtel for Rs. 7,261 crore through an open market transaction.

The stake has been picked by Bharti Airtel's promoter Bharti Telecom, as per block deal data with the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

According to the data, Pastel offloaded 9,40,00,000 shares, amounting to 1.59 percent stake in the company.

The shares were disposed of at an average price of Rs. 772.5 apiece, taking the transaction value to Rs 7,261.50 crore.

Pastel is a unit of Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel).

Post this transaction, Pastel's shareholding in Bharti Airtel will decrease to 10.62 percent from 12.21 percent.

At the end of the June quarter, Pastel held 13.84 percent stake in the firm, shareholding data with the bourse showed.

Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal's family and Singtel are co-investors in Bharti Telecom (BTL).

In early September, Singtel entities had jointly sold a 1.76 percent stake in Bharti Airtel for about Rs. 7,128 crore, while its co-promoter Bharti Telecom bought 1.63 percent stake from Pastel for Rs. 6,602 crore.

Last month, Singtel announced that its affiliates have entered into an agreement to transfer approximately 3.33 percent stake to BTL for an aggregate amount of approximately 2.25 billion Singapore dollars (SGD), leaving direct shareholding of Singtel and Bharti in Airtel at around 10 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Bharti Telecom at present holds 35.85 percent stake in the country's second-largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel.

Shares of Bharti Airtel closed 0.56 percent higher at Rs. 784.60 on NSE.