Carlyle to buy 25% stake in Airtels data centre arm for $235mn

Airtel's data centre business Nxtra will use the proceeds to continue to scale up its infrastructure and offerings across the country.

US based private equity player The Carlyle Group will acquire a 25 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel's data centre business, Nxtra Data, for $235 million. Nxtra, which is building multiple large data centres across India, will use the proceeds from deal to continue to scale up its infrastructure and offerings across the country.

The transaction, subject to regulatory approvals including the Competition Commission of India, values the Nxtra enterprise at approximately $1.2 billion, the companies said in a joint statement.

India is seeing a surge in demand for data centres as more businesses choose cloud computing, and consumer demand for digital services such as smartphone entertainment continues to grow, they added.

Neeraj Bharadwaj, Managing Director, Carlyle Asia Partners, said: “India is set to become one of the largest markets in the world for digital services. Airtel, with its proven track record of solid execution and customer focus, is well positioned to leverage the potential growth of data centres in India.”