Indian conglomerate Bharti Global has agreed to snap up Altice's 24.5 percent stake in UK telco giant BT.

Bharti is buying the stake off Patrick Drahi, the founder of struggling French telco Altice.

Drahi is selling the stake to pay down debt. At closing on Friday, the Altice UK stake would have been worth about £3.2 billion ($4.1bn).

The deal will see Bharti acquire 10 percent of BT’s shares from Altice immediately, before buying the remainder once it has gained regulatory approvals.

Bharti, founded by billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, has sought opportunities beyond India but has ruled out a full buyout of BT, estimated to be worth $17bn, before the announcement of the deal.

“I’ve been watching BT for long, long years, it’s a company which has a glorious past, has national status, has this tremendous amount of physical infrastructure in the UK,” Mittal said on a call with reporters on Monday, noting that the company's investment is a long-term one.

Following the announcement, BT shares rose by as much as 7.6 percent this morning.

"We welcome investors who recognize the long-term value of our business, and this scale of investment from Bharti Global is a great vote of confidence in the future of BT Group and our strategy,” said Allison Kirkby, CEO of BT, in a statement.

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.

The Portuguese unit of Altice has also been separately looking to sell off its data center unit.

Altice Portugal has been grappling with a corruption probe, which led to the arrest of Drahi's fellow co-founder and former chief operating officer Armando Pereira. Drahi told investors last August that he felt "betrayed."