After Yes Bank, Carlyle in talks to sell its 25% stake in Bharti Airtel's data arm

After Yes Bank, Carlyle in talks to sell its 25% stake in Bharti Airtel’s data arm

American private equity major Carlyle is reportedly in talks with PE firm Blackstone for its 25 per cent stake in Nxtra Data, the data arm of Bharti Airtel. If talks go through, Bharti Airtel’s data business will be valued at Rs 10,000 crore.

Carlyle acquired Nxtra stake for $235 million or about Rs 1,800 crore in 2020. A possible sale of Carlyle’s stake in the firm, according to a Business Standard report, would be its fourth exit this financial year after it sold part of its stake in YES Bank via block deal for Rs 1,160 crore.

Carlyle also sold its 2.5 per cent stake in Delhivery for Rs 709 crore in June. In August, it sold its 2.17 per cent stake in Piramal Pharma.

BT could not independently verify the report.

Nxtra by Airtel has 12 large and 120 edge data centres across the country. It previously said to invest over Rs 5000 crores over the next few years to build six new hyperscale data centres across key metro cities in India and expand its capacity by 2X to over 400 MW.

Nxtra’s revenue has grown at an average annual pace of around 13 percent over the past five years (from Rs 852 crore in FY19 to Rs 1,601 crore in FY23), driven by robust demand for its services, according to Care Ratings.

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