The UK government has cleared Bharti Global's acquisition of a 24.5 percent stake in British telco giant BT.

Indian firm Bharti snapped up the stake from Altice founder Patrick Drahi.

BT Group EE
– BT Group

Drahi agreed to sell the stake in BT in August, as part of an effort to reduce Altice's debts. The deal sees Bharti become the top shareholder of the company.

Although BT confirmed via an investor filing that Bharti had completed the transaction last month, the UK government finally cleared the acquisition of the stake this week.

The government approved the deal on the basis that BT establishes a national security committee within the company to oversee "strategic work that it performs which has an impact on or is in respect of the national security."

Bharti's acquisition of the stake has been carried out in two stages, with the company initially acquiring 10 percent of BT shares from Altice back in August, before the remainder of the deal was completed last month.

Bharti's stake in BT is worth around £3.6 billion ($4.57bn) based on BT’s share price of 148 pence.

Drahi only increased Altice UK's stake in BT to 24.5 percent in May of last year, and even had plans to increase it to nearly 30 percent.

However, after years of acquisitions, the company has been looking to shift assets in order to pay down its mounting debt, which sits at around $60bn.

The company is open to selling its telecoms business and has recently spun off its French data center assets, forming a new company with more than 250 facilities in France, which was then sold to Morgan Stanley.

Altice has been in talks over a deal to sell its Portuguese mobile unit, but ended talks with Saudi Telecom Group (STC) in June, while the Portuguese unit of Altice has also been separately looking to sell off its data center unit.

Bharti, founded by billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, has sought opportunities beyond India but ruled out a full buyout of BT.

Ironically, BT previously owned a 21 percent stake in Bharti Airtel between 1997 and 2001, a subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises Limited.

BT is believed to be looking to sell its international unit.

In September, Carlos Slim, once the world's richest man, increased his stake in BT to 4.3 percent via his family investment firm after it had initially acquired a 3.2 percent stake in June.