BT Said to Seek $251 Million for Tech Mahindra Stake

BT Group Plc (BT/A) raised 13.9 billion rupees ($251 million) by selling part of its stake in Indian software developer Tech Mahindra Ltd. (TECHM) to institutional investors and may consider offloading more.

The U.K’s largest fixed-line phone company sold a 14.1 percent stake, or 17.9 million shares, in Tech Mahindra at an average price of 777.73 rupees per share, BT said in a statement today. Tech Mahindra shares fell 5 percent to 793.05 rupees at the close in Mumbai. BT was little changed at 219 pence as of 2:30 p.m. in London.

BT, which said that Tech Mahindra will remain a key supplier to the company, now holds 9.1 percent of the software company. BT sold a 5.5 percent stake in Tech Mahindra to automobile maker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (MM) in December 2010 for 4.5 billion rupees. The financial impact of the sale announced today will be disclosed at the BT’s next financial results.

Credit Suisse Group AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are managing the sale, a person with knowledge of the matter has said. The person declined to be identified because the information wasn’t public.

Indian companies have raised 349 billion rupees from share sales this year, a majority of which came from block trades to institutions, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ruth David in Mumbai at rdavid9@bloomberg.net; Amy Thomson in London at athomson6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mohammed Hadi at mhadi1@bloomberg.net; Philip Lagerkranser at lagerkranser@bloomberg.net