Bharti Airtel Ltd. and another entity will sell a combined 20% of its direct-to-home arm Bharti Telemedia Ltd. to global private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC for US$350 million.
In a Dec. 12 filing, Airtel said it will sell 15% of its stake in Bharti Telemedia, while another one of its entities will give up 5% of the stake it holds.
Upon closing of the deal, Airtel will own an 80% equity stake in Bharti Telemedia.
Bharti Telemedia is one of India's largest DTH paid TV service providers, offering services under the Airtel TV brand. It had about 14 million subscribers as of Sept. 30.
In October, Tata Group and Airtel are reported to have been engaging in talks to merge their DTH businesses, just after striking a deal to combine their consumer mobile businesses. The discussions have reportedly reached the due diligence stage and a deal is expected to be finalized in 2018.
