Bharti Airtel in talks to sell Sri Lankan operations to Etisalat, Indian newspaper says
View(s):NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel, the world’s fourth largest telecom operator by subscribers, is in advanced discussions to sell off its Sri Lankan operations to Abu Dhabi’s Etisalat, said two persons aware of the development, according to Indian newspaper, Econmic Times.
The paper said Standard Chartered Bank was advising the Indian company in the transaction.
Bharti Airtel which has a subscriber base of 1.7 million, has been valued between $110 million and $130 million. Etisalat is Sri Lanka’s third-largest operator with 4.5 million subscribers and it will move up to the second spot if the deal goes through, the paper said.
In Colombo, senior officials from both companies declined to comment on the report.
Airtel’s growth prospects in the island nation, on the other hand, were limited as it just had 1.7 million subscribers.
The company’s subscribers have not grown in the past four quarters and despite investing over $300 million since 2007, the unit continues to make losses. “The Sri Lankan operation has been a cash guzzler for Bharti,” the paper quoted one source as saying.
The company, which entered the Sri Lankan market in 2009 as the country’s fifth operator, offers 2G, 3G and 3.5G services in the island nation across all the 25 districts and it has built a distributor network of 40,500 retailers.
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