Bharti Airtel share rises after Carlyle eyes 25% stake in its data centre business

Bharti Airtel share price was up over 2 percent in morning trade on July 1 after the company said private equity group Carlyle will buy a 25 percent stake in Bharti Airtel's data centre business for $235 million.

Carlyle Group will make the investment in Bharti Airtel's Nxtra Data at a valuation of $1.2 billion. Bharti Airtel will continue to hold the remaining 75 percent holding in Nxtra Data.

The stock price jumped over 31 percent in the last 3 months and was trading at at Rs 565.00, up Rs 5.35, or 0.96 percent at 09:26 hours. It has touched an intraday high of Rs 574.00 and an intraday low of Rs 565.00.

Private equity player Carlyle will make the investment though an entity called Comfort Investments II.

This is Carlyle's third recent investment in India, after purchasing stakes in Sequent Scientific and Piramal Pharma.

"Rapid digitization has opened up a massive growth opportunity for data centres in India and we plan to accelerate our investments to become a major player in this segment," Gopal Vittal, CEO (India and Asia) of Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

Nxtra will use the proceeds from the deal to boost its infrastructure and offerings across India.

The stock was the top index gainer and was one of the most active stocks on NSE in terms of value with 24,06,956 shares being traded.