Billionaire Sunil Mittal's Airtel is taking its African mobile money business to London in a deal that could be worth $10 billion

Sunil Mittal has spent years building one of Africa's most valuable fintech businesses inside a telecom company. He is now preparing to give it a life of its own.

Airtel Africa Plc, the pan-African wireless carrier majority-owned by Mittal's Bharti Enterprises, is targeting a London Stock Exchange listing for Airtel Money, its mobile financial services unit, in a deal that could raise between $1.5 billion and $2 billion and value the business at up to $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. At that valuation, the listing would rank among the largest IPOs on a European exchange in recent years.

London has emerged as the most likely venue after earlier reports pointed to the United Arab Emirates as the preferred location. Other European markets were also considered. Citigroup Inc. is advising on the transaction, with three or four additional banks expected to be appointed as the process advances. No final decisions have been made on deal size, timing or location, the people said. Representatives for Airtel Africa and Citigroup both declined to comment.

The business Mittal is proposing to list has been growing fast. Airtel Money's revenues rose 29.4% in the nine months to December 2025, reaching $986 million, while its user base crossed 52 million active customers for the first time. Total transaction value across the platform hit more than $210 billion in the third quarter of 2025 alone, a 36% increase on the same period a year earlier. Those numbers have attracted serious institutional interest. TPG Inc., Mastercard Inc. and an affiliate of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, are all existing investors in the unit.

Airtel Africa chief executive Sunil Taldar said in February that the company was committed to listing Airtel Money by mid-2026. That timeline now looks tight given where the process stands, but the direction of travel has not changed. Airtel Africa operates across 14 countries and is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and the Nigerian Exchange in Lagos. A London listing for Airtel Money keeps the unit within a familiar regulatory environment and investor base, reduces execution risk and positions it alongside pricing benchmarks that London institutions already understand, including MTN MoMo and Safaricom's M-Pesa.

The IPO comes as Airtel Africa navigates a leadership change at the top. Mittal, who founded the group and has chaired it for seven years, is stepping down from the chairmanship. Gopal Vittal, currently chief executive of Bharti Airtel in India, is set to take over as chairman in July 2026. Whoever formally leads the Airtel Money listing will be executing the biggest strategic move the company has made since its own London IPO in 2019.

For Mittal, the transaction represents an opportunity to unlock the value embedded in Airtel Africa's fintech arm, which has consistently grown faster than its core telecommunications business. His family's net worth stands at more than $24.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, built across Bharti Enterprises, Bharti Airtel, UK-based satellite company OneWeb and the 24.5% stake in BT Group Plc that a Bharti unit acquired last year.

Airtel Africa will report full-year results on May 8. Those numbers will shape the conversation heading into what could be one of the most significant African fintech listings ever taken to a global exchange.