Clearly British Telecom is upbeat about Bharti Cellular, the UK telecom giant’s mobile phone joint venture with the Mittals’ Bharti group. The British multinational has raised its stake in the joint venture twice in 1999.

Early in the year, British Telecom purchased a 17 per cent stake in Bharti Cellular from Emtel, the Mauritius-based telecom venture. This took BT group’s holding to 39.5 per cent. The company is now proposing to pick up a further 4.5 per cent held by MSI of the UK.

The proposal to acquire MSI''s stake is before the Foreign Investment Promotion Board. The FIPB is likely to agree to the proposal as the transaction is between two foreign companies and there will be no inflow of foreign exchange into the country. Besides, the total equity that British Telecom and an associate company General Mobile will hold in Bharti Cellular will not exceed the stipulated 49 per cent.

British Telecom will pick up the MSI holding directly. That will take its direct holding in Bharti BT to 21.5 per cent. General Mobile will continue to hold 22.5 per cent.

Once the transaction is approved, BT will have 44 per cent, non-resident Indians and others 5 per cent and Bharti Televentures, a subsidiary of Bharti Enteprises, a holding company of the Bharti group, 51 per cent stake respectively in Bharti Cellular.

Bharti Cellular has made an investment of nearly Rs 300 crore in the cellular service project. Of this, around Rs 50 crore have been brought as foreign direct investment.