Airtel- Bharti Mittal regrets venturing into Africa

Sunil Bharti Mittal expressed his displeasure over venturing into Africa and said that it took years and resources to fix it.

"We all must have made lots of mistakes. Lots of decision when you look back, say I wish they were better thought through. If you pin me down to one, I would say in 2010 our decision to go to Africa was a bit rushed and that has taken 6-7-8 years and lot of resources and my personal time to fix that," Mittal said.

Mittal's firm Bharti Airtel had ventured in Africa market with USD 10.7 billion (or about Rs 48,000 crore at that) acquisition of Kuwait-based Zain Telecom's African assets. The company at present operates in 15 African countries.

"In Africa, thankfully, it is much better place today. It is free cash flow positive but when I look I think if I would have conserved that energy, capital and energy, probably we would have been better place today in our home market. Every entrepreneur comes to a point where you make some mistake and the only thing is that you should recognise it and try to fix it as fast as you can," Mittal said.