Bharti Airtel stake sale: 5.1 crore shares sold in block deal, Singtel likely cuts holding; stock falls 4%

More than 5.1 crore shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd were sold on Friday morning through a large block deal on the exchanges, with Singapore's Singtel being the likely seller. Bharti Airtel stock fell as much as 4 percent amid the large trade.

The identities of the buyers and sellers could not be confirmed, but media reports earlier suggested that Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel), through its subsidiary Pastel Ltd, was likely to sell around 0.8 percent stake in the telecom major via a Rs 10,300-crore block deal. The floor price for the transaction was reportedly set at Rs 2,030 per share, about 3 percent below Thursday’s closing price of Rs 2,094.6 on the BSE.

Bharti Airtel’s share price fell 4.1 percent to a low of Rs 2,008.9 on Friday in the early morning trading amid the block deal. The stock remains up around 28 percent over the past year.

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If the reports are accurate, the deal would mark another round of stake dilution by Singtel as part of its ongoing capital management strategy to optimise portfolio holdings and enhance shareholder returns. Singtel had earlier offloaded a 1.2 percent direct stake in Airtel through a private placement in May 2025.

Analysts said such large transactions may create short-term supply pressure but are unlikely to affect Bharti Airtel’s underlying business fundamentals. The company recently reported an 89 percent year-on-year rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 6,792 crore for the July-September quarter, while revenue increased 25.7 percent to Rs 52,145 crore. Its average revenue per user (ARPU) improved to Rs 256 from Rs 233 a year ago.

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