Bharti Airtel Board To Meet On Dec. 4 To Consider Fundraising Plan
Airtel’s fundraising plan comes in the aftermath of Supreme Court judgment on adjusted gross revenue that battered its Q2 results.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd. on Friday said it's board will meet on Dec. 4 to consider a fundraising plan, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court judgment on adjusted gross revenue.
Airtel reported a record quarterly loss in the July-September quarter as it took a one-time charge of Rs 30,710 crore to pay fees related to the court ruling, and as competition with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. dragged down tariffs.
"A meeting of the board of directors of the company is scheduled to be held Wednesday, Dec. 04, 2019, to inter-alia consider and evaluate any and all proposals for raising of funds either by issuance of equity shares, and or bonds including foreign currency convertible bonds," the company said in a regulatory filing.
The board will also evaluate a fundraising plan involving debentures, non-convertible debt instruments along with warrants, convertible debentures, securities or any other equity-based instruments including through qualified institutional placement or rights issue, or through any other permissible mode, the filing said.
The Supreme Court had on Oct. 24 upheld the government's way of calculating telecom revenue, on which licence fee and spectrum usage charges are computed.
According to the initial calculations, access players like Airtel, Vodafone Idea Ltd. and other operational telecom operators may have to pay the government more than Rs 96,000 crore within three months.
On Friday, Airtel shares rose 1.28 percent to Rs 442.30 apiece on the BSE while the benchmark Sensex shed 0.82 percent to end the day at 40,793.81 points.