Sunil Mittal, the founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, is in early talks to merge Airtel Payments Bank into Paytm Payments Bank in a stock deal.
Mittal is looking to acquire a stake in Paytm as part of the agreement, including by buying shares of the fintech company from other stockholders, Bloomberg reported Friday evening, citing unnamed sources.
According to the report, Airtel and Paytm may not reach a deal as the talks are in the early stages.
Shares of One97 Communications Ltd, Paytm’s parent company, ended Friday up 2.55% on BSE at Rs 622.00 apiece, while the benchmark Sensex index shed nearly 142 points to close at 59,463.93.
Airtel Payments Bank had 129 million customers and had turned profitable in the financial year 2021-22.
