Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer acted for Indian telecoms giant Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary Airtel Africa on a $1.25bn investment in Airtel Africa by six leading global investors including Warburg Pincus, Softbank, Temasek and Singtel. The Freshfields team was led by India practice head and corporate and securities partner Arun Balasubramanian, who was supported by partner Nigel Gleeson and associates Rohan Kaul, Kaustuv Banerjee and Theo Heng based in Freshfields’ Singapore office, in addition to a team of lawyers from the firm’s London and Amsterdam offices.

The Airtel legal team was led by group general counsel Mukesh Bhavnani, director (legal) Vidyut Gulati and Africa heads of legal and regulatory Olivier Pognon and Daddy Mukadi.

Africa Legal Network (ALN) acted for Bharti Airtel and Airtel Africa as local counsel across Africa.

The deal is one of Africa’s largest cross-border M&A transactions in 2018. Airtel Africa is the second largest telecom operator in Africa with operations in 14 countries and a customer base of 91 million, according to reports.

The company is apparently eyeing an IPO.

No Indian law firms were involved, it is understood.

Primary jurisdictions of deal: Africa.

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