I am like a junkie looking for his next fix: Sunil Mittal

Source: Forbes India

For the 52-year-old chairman and Group CEO of Bharti enterprises, this is that moment. A year after being spurned by the African telecom giant MTN, he is now back at the negotiating table. He is busy sewing up the deal that will give him the entrepreneurial pep that a stand-alone Bharti can no longer deliver.

As he prepares to give the final touch to the biggest M&A deal by an Indian company, Mittal takes time off to speak to Forbes India. In this exclusive, rare and candid interview, he talks about where he will take Bharti next and how he plans to build the next Indian multinational.

“MTN is a well thought out deal and has been in the works in some sense for a long time,” Mittal says. With Airtel’s reach set to cover as much as 90% of India’s population, where can his team go in the next 3-4 years? “They’re getting restless. We need to expand our horizons and go out of India. That is what we have been trying over the last couple of years... The focus has to be on Africa, the Middle East, and some other developing markets.”

Forbes India reckons that this will be a transformational deal. For the past five years, Mittal has tried his hand at retail, insurance and agriculture. But replicating the Airtel success has proven elusive. So now, Mittal is focusing on telecom all over again. The likely merger will create a $23 billion emerging market giant that will be the third largest mobile operator in the world with over 200 million customers in 25 plus countries.

Mittal does not miss a chance to remind readers that Anil Ambani had come in last year and foiled his original bid. “World over, interlopers in any process are the norm. If you have an Alcoa, somebody will jump into it. If you’re close to getting Arcelor, somebody will jump in. You need to deal with it. We decided to walk away from it.”

Forbes India writes that in his 30-year journey from an imported-scrap dealer to India’s largest telecom player, Sunil Mittal has built and rebuilt businesses many times over—at times pushed by fatal policies and sometimes nudged by surging dreams. But he has always come back bigger and stronger. So be sure that Mittal will do everything possible to get the deal through.

Mittal also cleared the air about his own ambitions. Yes, politics might have been a possibility five years ago, but gradually that thought has gone away. He doesn’t plan to get into politics, but wants to contribute to the nation in some other way. Well, not yet. “I haven’t cleared my table as yet to take any responsibilities. But who knows?”

The current issue of Forbes India also has exclusive stories on Jet’s new gameplan with Jet Konnect, Praj’s ethanol mission and a worldwide view of the ultimate billionaire parties.