Bharti Airtel president Manoj Kohli with Simon Beresford Wylie, CEO of Nokia Seimens, in New Delhi on Tuesday. (PTI)

New Delhi, July 3: Temasek, the Singapore government’s investment arm, has picked up an indirect stake of 4.99 per cent in Bharti Airtel. At current market prices, a 4.99 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel will amount to Rs 8,198 crore.

According to an official statement, one of the group companies of Bharti Enterprises today granted an option to a wholly owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited to acquire an indirect stake in Bharti Airtel.

According to the shareholding pattern, Bharti Enterprises continues to maintain a controlling interest of over 45 per cent in Bharti Airtel.

Singapore Telecom (SingTel), which holds around 31 per cent in Bharti Airtel, is 56 per cent owned by Temasek.

In May this year, the Bharti group had decided to buy out Vodafone’s 5.6 per cent direct holding in Bharti Airtel for Rs 6,500 crore in two tranches ending November 2008.

Vodafone had acquired direct and indirect stakes of up to 10 per cent in Bharti Airtel in October 2005 for Rs 6,700 crore.

$900m expansion order

Nokia Siemens Networks, the world’s third-largest telecom equipment manufacturer, won a $900-million order to expand Bharti Airtel’s mobile, fixed and intelligent network platforms.

Bharti may also place a similar-sized contract with Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson for mobile expansion. Bharti Airtel president and CEO Manoj Kohli, however, did not disclose the financial details.

This will be among the largest GSM expansion deals in India with the installation of around 22,000 base station sites. Bharti had announced a capital expenditure of $3.5 billion to penetrate into the country.

Under a two-year contract, Nokia Siemens Networks will install 1.8 million ports to expand Airtel’s national and international long-distance networks. “Bharti Airtel is undertaking a massive expansion and integration exercise across its mobile and fixed (landline) networks to augment its service delivery capacity,” said Kohli.

The MoU was signed between Nokia Siemens CEO Simon Beresford Wylie and Kohli. Nokia Siemens will also set up an international calling card prepaid service under a separate three-year contract.