Telecom tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal on Friday seemed to regret venturing into Africa when he termed it “a bit rushed” move that took years of his personal time and resources to fix it.
“We all must have made lots of mistakes. lots of decision when you look back, say I wish they were better thought through. If you pin me down to one, I would say in 2010 our decision to go to Africa was a bit rushed and that has taken 6-7-8 years and lot of resources and my personal time to fix that,” Mittal said.
He was responding to query at TiEcon Delhi event that which is the one business decision that he regrets the most.
Mittal's firm Bharti Airtel had ventured in Africa market with $10.7 billion (or about Rs 48,000 crore at that) acquisition of Kuwait-based Zain Telecom's African assets. The company at present operates in 15 African countries.
“In Africa, thankfully, it is much better place today. It is free cash flow positive but when I look I think if I would have conserved that energy, capital and energy, probably we would have been better place today in our home market. Every entrepreneur comes to a point where you make some mistake and the only thing is that you should recognise it and try to fix it as fast as you can,” Mittal said.
The company had reported a consolidated net debt of Rs 91,480 crore as on June 30, 2017.
Bharti Airtel had reported 2.8 per cent rise in its Africa revenue on an underlying basis, while the operating profit margins improved over 9 per cent year-on-year. In the quarter.
In the second quarter ended June 30, 2017, Bharti Airtel's Africa revenue stood at Rs 4,852.8 crore and profit after tax excluding exceptional item at Rs 338.8 crore.