Airtel shareholders approve selling DCMS biz for Rs 177cr

Bharti Airtel's shareholders have approved a proposal for selling the company's Data Centre and Managed Services business to its wholly-owned subsidiary Nxtra Data for about Rs 177 crore. The company in a filing to the BSE today said that shareholders passed the resolution with "overwhelming majority".

"Slump sale of Data Centre and Managed Services Business to Nxtra Data Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited ... passed with overwhelming majority," the company said. The country's largest telecom company in August has said that it will seek shareholders' approval for sale or transfer of its DCMS business "for a consideration not less than Rs 1,771 million."

"The transfer consideration has been arrived at on the basis of enterprise value of the DCMS business after reducing the liabilities in relation to the said business," it had said.

Bharti Airtel owns seven operational data centres across the country. Out of them, two are in Noida, one each in Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Bhubaneswar and Mumbai.

The company's board of directors approved the transaction during their meeting held on July 30. In this regard, Bharti Airtel had also entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Nxtra Data Ltd.

"Due to the increasing awareness and acceptance of key products such as co-location, managed hosting and managed security, the demand of DCMS is continually evolving in the country. DCMS division offers a gamut of services, including co-location, managed services and managed back-up & storage.

Shares of the company today closed at Rs 318.25 a unit, down by 2.11 per cent at BSE.