Airtel Investors Approve Google’s Rs 5000 Crore Investment For Acquiring 1.28% Stake; Rs 1.17 Lakh Cr Infra Spend Also Approved

• Shareholders of Airtel have approved Google’s investment. 
• Google will invest Rs. 7500 crore for a 1.28% stake in Airtel.
• Google said that it is going to invest in Airtel as a part of the Google for India Digitization Fund. 

Shareholders of Airtel have approved Google’s investment in Telco. Google is going to invest Rs. 7500 crore for a 1.28% stake in Airtel. Google’s investment was treated as a special resolution. The shareholders voted and over 99% of shareholders were in favour of Google’s investment in Telco as per the voting result of an extraordinary general meeting which was held on 26th February. 

Google had revealed on 28th January that the company was going to make an investment worth $1 billion which is approximately Rs. 7500 crore in Airtel. This includes an equity investment and a corpus for possible commercial agreements that will be identified and agreed upon by both companies mutually over the next five years. 

Investment is a part of the India Digitization Fund 

Google said that it is going to invest about $1 billion in Airtel as a part of the Google for India Digitization Fund. 

“Airtel and Google share the vision to grow India’s digital dividend through innovative products. With our future ready network, digital platforms, last mile distribution and payments ecosystem, we look forward to working closely with Google to increase the depth and breadth of India’s digital ecosystem,” stated Sunil Bharti Mittal, the Chairman of Bharti Airtel.

How will the investment be used? 

The investment is going to consist of a $700 million equity investment in Airtel. The price per share is ?734. The other $300 million is going to go towards implementing commercial agreements. This is going to include investments to increase Airtel’s offerings to cover a range of devices through creative affordability programmes and also other offerings targeted to accelerate access and digital inclusion across India’s digital ecosystem.

A majority of Airtel’s shareholders have also approved the proposal of spending approximately Rs. 1.17 lakh crore in business transactions with the company’s subsidiaries which are Indus Towers, Nxtra and Bharti Hexacom.