Bharti Airtel agreed to acquire 70% stake in Warid Telecom, Bangladesh, currently a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dhabi Group. Warid Telecom offers mobile services across all the 64 districts of Bangladesh and has a total customer base of over 2.9 million.
Bharti Airtel will make a fresh investment of US$300 million to rapidly expand the operations of Warid Telecom and will have management and board control of the company. This is the largest investment in Bangladesh by an Indian company. Dhabi Group will continue as a strategic partner retaining 30% shareholding and have their nominees on the Board of the Company.
“Bangladesh, with a population of over 160 million and teledensity of 32% is a very promising market for telecom services. Bharti is keen to work in Bangladesh and contribute to achieving the vision of Digital Bangladesh even sooner than 2021,” stated Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel.
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- As of November 2009. Bharti Airtel had an aggregate of over 118 million customers, including 116.01 million mobile customers.