Sunil Bharti Mittal plans Airtel handover to children in next 10 years, targets promoter stake above 50%

Telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal plans to hand over the reins of Bharti Airtel to his children in the next decade and desires that promoter firm Bharti Telecom regains over 50% stake in the company.

Owned by the Mittal family and Singtel Group, Bharti Telecom holds 40.47% stake in Airtel.

The promoter firms, including Bharti Telecom, the Mittal family holding firm Indian Continent Investment, the Singtel Group firm Pastel, and others jointly hold a 48.87% stake in Airtel.

Mittal - whose current term as the company Chairman was due to expire on September 30 - has been reappointed for five years till September 30, 2031.

"My own wish is that in the next – I know it's hard to put in years on it – decade as I kind of come to a point where I hand over the reins to the next generation as shareholders, Bharti Telecom should get back to controlling shareholding of 51% or just over 50%," Mittal said.

Mittal, during Bharti Airtel's Q4 earnings call on Thursday, said in order to raise Bharti Telecom's stake by 10% in Airtel, a good amount of cash in hand is needed. It would require an investment of ₹1 lakh crore based on present share price and market capitalisation of the company.

Bharti Enterprises Holding has a 50.56% stake and Singtel a 49.44% stake in Bharti Telecom.

"You know, basically the belief remains that you must have everything through one company that should be the controlling, promoting shareholder. Bharti Telecom, as you know, historically has not only been the founding promoter of this company (but has also) had almost always for a long period of time, a controlling shareholding of 51%," Mittal said.

Mittal said that the shareholding in Airtel can be raised in next 3-4 years, depending on the performance of the company driven by top executives handling day-to-day operations.

Singtel has around a 7% direct stake in Bharti Airtel.

"To put a bit more granular sort of angle, Singtel has a 7% direct stake in Airtel and it had about 6% to equalise. Now with this transaction, once this is done and shares are issued, the gap will come down to 3.6% (for a target of 51%). We should see an overall gap dramatically reducing, and Singtel, which has been on the path of selling down its direct stake, has to sell now much less than earlier," he said.

Assuming a next 3-4 year timeframe for acquiring a 3.6% balance stake in Airtel, Mittal said that it will depend on the performance of Airtel executive leadership on executing share buybacks, giving out more dividends and generating cash flow to put more cash in hand for Bharti Telecom to achieve the target.

Mittal also said even Airtel should make an attempt to have a higher share in Airtel Africa, around 90%.

The Airtel board on Wednesday approved raising the company's stake in Airtel Africa by 16.31% to around 79% through a share swap agreement worth ₹28,220 crore from the 62.73% stake at present.

"The UK regulations allow you to go up to 90%. With this move, we have gone up to 78%. Ambition for Airtel should be whatever is allowed to go up to 90%, they should get there,” Mittal said.

He said Airtel Africa has been doing buybacks from time to time.

“Hopefully, in the next few years with the buyback programme and if some other block comes from any other investor to Airtel, the attention we will probably in the next 7 years, get to that point of owning more of (Airtel) Africa so that we can get more income flowing back to the mothership Bharti Airtel and reward shareholders even more,” he said.

Mittal said that Airtel will never become like IT companies “who have done nothing but just taken money out as dividends and buybacks.”

“With dividends and buybacks, they become a shadow of themselves. Many of those companies should have been buying leading-edge businesses in their own industry in the last 10-15 years. They would have been in a different position today. You (investors) will probably come back and encourage us to go buy some more good-valued telecom assets around the globe,” he said.

Mittal founded Bharti Group in 1976. The group has grown since then to multiple segments, including telecom, space communications, digital infrastructure, and financial services, among others.

Bharti Airtel on Wednesday posted a 33.5% decline in consolidated net profit to ₹7,325 crore for the March 2026 quarter, mainly due to one-time provisions related to statutory and tax liabilities.

The company's annual revenue for the first time crossed ₹2 lakh crore, driven by 3.2% customer growth to 66.5 crore, coupled with an increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) in India.

(Except for the headline, Fortune India has not edited the content of this PTI report.)