Bharti Ent Buys Stake In British Telecom | NDTV Profit
Transcript
00:00And Mr. Satyan Gupta, the ex-principal advisor of TRAI is joining us on the broadcast. Good evening, and thank you very much
00:08Good evening
00:09Now this of course
00:11Mr. Gupta will be a fantastic testament to the India growth story. How do you look at it?
00:18Yes, Nupur, it is really a great thing, great honor and prestige for the country and
00:25Bharti as you know have already been looking
00:28towards going global. Actually not today, but maybe 30 years back actually. Like they were in
00:35Seychelles also, they went to Bangladesh, then they went to Africa and just a few years back only they acquired a
00:43biggest
00:44Leo company of
00:47UK and that is called OneWeb which have been merged with the UTELSAT. So their ambitions are well known, their
00:54capabilities are well known and especially Sunil Bharti Mittal who was just talking just now.
01:00But this deal of course is a landmark one. Actually as you know in the Bharti in
01:071999-2000
01:09it was other way round actually. The British telecom held about 20% stake in the early stages of
01:16Bharti as a mobile operator in India and when they actually
01:22went away from the mobile because of that 3G problem of
01:28what they call winner's curse and they had to go out of mobile, that time they also sold their
01:34equity from Airtel which was always talked as a historical mistake by the BT Global Board
01:42actually. But now with this 25% kind of
01:47stake acquisition in the main BT group and becoming the largest
01:53actually
01:54shareholder in the British telecom or BT group, that is a great thing for the country, for the
02:01company and for all the Indians actually to be proud of. But this will be a great thing for the
02:09group also, the
02:11Bharti group actually as Sunilji was mentioning
02:14because there the growth is very low, but maybe with the innovation what
02:21Bharti have done in India actually, they have been leader in the innovation, like they brought that managed service concept
02:27and they have also now gone to satellite and they are very good in 5G, all kind of innovation
02:34what they have done in growing the business, customer acquisition, customer relationship and
02:40also going in the all segments and
02:43handling the regulatory
02:45issues in many countries actually. So and as far as the UK is concerned, they already have handled that by
02:52acquisition of OneWeb, so they are just ready for the take-off actually. This opportunity was
02:59needed for them which will do wonders and it will be other way round also actually because
03:04BT group also have a big presence in India actually, they have ILD license, ISP license, NLD license and now with
03:13Bharti as one of their biggest stakeholder, they will get very good preferential deals actually for the local
03:21infrastructure in the India and for Bharti also they will be their client, in a way, partner
03:27and so it will be win-win for both the groups, the BT group as well as the
03:34Airtel group actually, not only in UK but also in India and in the neighboring country, so it's a great deal
03:41I will say and it is a
03:44maybe a dream coming true for Sunil Bharti Mithal.
03:49Absolutely, Mr. Gupta, as you mentioned, you know how the tide has turned now, but Mr. Mithal has been
03:55insisting that he's not planning a full takeover, but the 24.5% stake will obviously give
04:02you know, Mr. Mithal a significant influence over one of the UK's most important companies. How do you see that?
04:10Yeah, yeah, you are right actually, the 20 being biggest stakeholder and having more than 10% is almost having a sort of
04:19control actually on ground, though financially they may not have control, but biggest stakeholder always have the
04:27final say actually, but it is not only about the percentage of the stake,
04:32it is about the value you bring actually to the company, your expertise, your
04:38innovation and your world experience and also your India infrastructure.
04:44That is what you bring and also your management team, actually already
04:48BT have a few of their
04:50directors who have migrated to
04:53BT UK actually already, so they have the leaders all over the world in the group as
05:00Airtel and they have the expertise, they have the money of course, that is where so they have
05:06everything what was required for BT as a group. So they will be now main, you can say, the
05:15caretaker of the BT as a group being the largest stakeholder and a very
05:21competitive one and already a global one.
05:25Right, absolutely. Mr. Gupta, appreciate your taking out time and joining us at such short notice. Thank you very much.
05:32Oh, thank you Nupur.
05:36You