Sterlite Technologies has sold a minority stake in Metis Eduventures for a consideration of Rs 45 crore.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Ankit Agarwal, MD of Sterlite Technologies, said, “In terms of Metis Eduventures, it was a minority investment in the education, edtech space. Just being not part of our core focus in terms of growth, we decided to exit this investment. To that extent, we have been utilising all of these cash-outs towards the reduction of our debt.”

Agarwal added, “In terms of our focus, what we have talked about is that by Q4 of FY23, we are looking at reducing our net debt to equity to about 0.5. So a lot of focus now is in terms of cash generation from the business and using that to reduce the debt.”

On optic fibre cable market, Agarwal said, “It is quite an exciting time right now, in terms of 5G deployments globally. We are seeing a significant number of tier one operators across the globe, specially in Europe, parts of Asia including China, as well as in the US. So with that, we are seeing a tremendous need for the optic fibre infrastructure.”

“We broadly believe that for creating a high quality 5G network, you need anywhere between 10 to 20 times the number of small cells and micro cells and all of this will need to be backhauled by fibre. So this presents a tremendous opportunity for network creation,” he mentioned.

For full management commentary, watch the video.

(Edited by : Dipikka Ghosh)

First Published:Nov 30, 2021 11:00 AM IST