Back in July 2020, Nxtra, the data center business of Bharti Airtel announced that the Carlyle Group will take a 25% stake in the company. At the time, Nxtra was valued at USD $1.2 billion. Now, the stake sale is completed. Carlyle Group has picked up a 24.04% stake in Nxtra Data Limited for Rs 17,880 million. On Wednesday, Airtel said, “We wish to submit that upon conversion of 17.88 million non-Cumulative 0.0001% Compulsory Convertible Preference Shares of face value of INR 1000/- each aggregating to INR 17,880 million, CA Cloud Investments (‘Carlyle’) now holds 24.04% equity stake in Nxtra Data Limited.” Airtel’s data center business has grown quite a bit since July 2020 when the announcement was first made. The remaining 75.96% stake is owned by Bharti Airtel only.
Nxtra Building Multiple Large Data Centers Across India
Nxtra has been rapidly increasing the data center capacity by making new investments and is also taking care of the green energy power supply. The cash inflow from Carlyle Group will further enable the telco in making larger investments faster. Earlier this month, Nxtra had picked up a strategic stake in Avaada MHAmravati, a special purpose vehicle formed for owning and operating a captive power plant. The company paid Rs 5.12 crore and picked up an 11.696% stake. This move will enable Nxtra into keeping its energy supply requirements in check. Nxtra is going to make huge investments over the coming years for increasing the data center capacity across India. The need for data centers is going to grow exponentially in the country with 5G launching soon. More and more businesses are adopting digital solutions to scale operations and that would also require the need for data centers. OTT (over-the-top) content companies also want their customers to get the best content viewing experience for which edge data centers are important. Overall, the investments that Nxtra is making right now will pay off for the company in the long run.
