British American Tobacco sells $1.5 billion stake in India's ITC via block deal

By Scott Murdoch

(Reuters) -British American Tobacco has sold a $1.5 billion stake in Indian consumer goods company ITC at 413 Indian rupees per share, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters.

The company sold 313 million shares in ITC, representing 2.5% of ITC, according to the term sheet. This final amount exceeded its initial plan to sell up to 290 million shares in the deal, valued at approximately $1.4 billion.

The final sale price represented a 4.8% discount to ITC's closing price of 433.90 rupees on Tuesday.

Shares of ITC dropped nearly 3% to 421.70 rupees on Wednesday. The stock was the top loser on both Nifty 50 and the FMCG index.

BAT will remain ITC's largest shareholder after the deal, according to LSEG data.

Goldman Sachs and Citigroup led the deal, the term sheet showed.

The deal is the second major block trade in India this week after IndiGo co-founder Rakesh Gangwal sold a 5.7% stake in the low-cost carrier worth $1.36 billion.

BAT said it would increase its 2025 1.1 billion pounds ($1.49 billion) share buyback programme by 200 million pounds as a result of the deal, which is not expected to have any other impact on its annual outlook.

The London-listed cigarette maker had last year sold 436.9 million shares, or roughly 3.5% of ITC's outstanding shares, for about $2 billion in what was India's third-largest block deal ever.

The British firm in February forecast 1% growth in its annual revenue, citing tax headwinds in key markets such as Bangladesh and Australia.

($1 = 0.7401 pounds)

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney; additional reporting Kashish Tandon, Prerna Bedi and Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo, Stephen Coates and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)