Bharti Airtel set to change shareholding pattern of subsidiaries outside the country

Telecom major Bharti Airtel today said it is restructuring shareholding pattern of foreign subsidiaries to simplify structure and bring in synergies between the companies. "The Board of Directors...approved the company's investments in its wholly-owned subsidiaries Bharti Airtel International (Mauritius) Ltd (BAIM), Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) B.V. (BAIN), Netherlands and Bharti International (Singapore) Pte Ltd (BISPL), Singapore will be held entirely by Network i2i Ltd (Ni2i), Mauritius, another wholly-owned subsidiary of the company," Bharti Airtel said in a regulatory filing.It further said: "BAIN will continue to hold the shareholding in African operating companies and the company's investments in its wholly-owned subsidiaries Bharti Airtel (USA) Ltd, Bharti Airtel (Hong Kong) Ltd and Bharti Airtel (UK) Ltd will be help entirely by BISPL, another wholly-owned subsidiary of the company". Elaborating on restructuring, it said: "The resultant 'vertical step by step shareholding structure' envisaged by the above restructuring aims to offer number of benefits including delayering and simplification of structure and synergies without any change in ultimate ownership over the said subsidiaries".This comes right after reports that Bharti Airtel’s net profit for the third quarter (October-December) of 2016-17 dropped by 55 percent, a company statement said here on Tuesday. The company posted net profit of Rs 504 crore for the October-December 2016-17 period compared to Rs 1,108 crore posted during the corresponding period in 2015-16.With inputs from PTI