Kohli to focus on building Bharti's B2B powerhouse

Mr Kohli said in a statement that he continued to be the CEO & joint MD of the firm and the sale of his 123,000 shares was for ���personal reasons.��� ���I continue to hold 180,000 options in the company, some of which have already vested and the balance will vest from time to time as per the vesting schedule. I am happy to confirm that I continue as CEO & joint MD,��� he said in a statement to the stock exchanges.

The Bharti scrip fell as much as 7.4% before closing 6.37% down at Rs 550.30 on BSE. The stock saw its maximum trading activity this year on Thursday, with about 24 lakh shares changing hands.

Bharti���s founder & chairman Sunil Mittal called the elevation of Mr Kapoor as a step to empower its top management.

���Today, we have taken another step in further empowering the top management team and laid a strong foundation for embarking on the next phase of our exciting growth journey,��� Mr Mittal said in a statement.

Bharti said Mr Kapoor would look after all its consumer businesses spanning mobile, fixed-line , direct-to-home (DTH) and broadband services, while Mr Kohli would increasingly focus on strategy development, governance, organisation development and focus on building Bharti���s ���B2B powerhouse.���

Bharti, which has 91 million mobile subscribers in India, is aiming to build this powerhouse over the next five years, which will see it focus on global wholesale voice and data services and other telecom and IT solutions. Mr Kapoor, in his mid-40 s, has been with Bharti Airtel since 1998, and has been instrumental in building its mobile services, especially in Delhi.