Vodafone to sell Bharti Airtel stake: Report

London, Jan 28: Vodafone has held talks with SingTel about the sale of its 10 percent stake in India's Bharti Airtel which it would need to offload if it won the auction for Hutchison Essar, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Singapore Telecommunications, Southeast Asia's top telecoms firm, already owns almost 31 percent of Bharti. The newspaper said SingTel had formally lodged its interest with Vodafone and its advisers at UBS.

Vodafone plans to tap into India's expanding telecoms market although it is being challenged in the race for Hutchison Essar by India's Reliance Communications , the Hinduja group and Hutchison's minority partner in the venture, Indian group Essar.

REUTERS>