Bharti Airtel shares fall over 2 percent on large trade of equity worth over Rs 12,500 crore

Shares of Bharti Airtel are lower by over 2 percent in early trade on August 8, emerging as the top loser on Nifty 50 index following a large trade that saw nearly one percent of the company's equity change hands, worth Rs 12,563 crore.

Moneycontrol had reported a day before that Sunil Mittal-led promoter entity is looking at a part stake sale in the telecom major. "The transaction has been launched at a floor price of Rs 1,862 per share, which is at a 3.15% discount to the last closing price," one of the persons familiar with the development had said. Indian Continent Investment, a Sunil Mittal-led promoter group entity that has likely trimmed its stake, holds 2.47% stake in Bharti Airtel.

After the June quarter earnings, Morgan Stanley had maintained its 'equal-weight' on Airtel, with a price target of Rs 1,890 per share. CLSA had kept its 'outperform' rating with a target price of Rs 2,035 per share. Macquarie, too, had maintained 'outperform' rating with a price target of Rs 2,050 per share after the Q1FY26 results. Read More

Bharti Airtel posted a robust free cashflow of Rs 14,500 crore and managed to trim net debt by Rs 13,000 crore sequentially to Rs 1.26 lakh crore in the June quarter. The telecom company is ramping up its fiber rollout from 1.6 million to 2.5 million home pass-ups per quarter, and is treating both FTTH and FWA under a single WiFi strategy. Airtel's ARPU rose to Rs 250, helped by a better subscriber mix and an extra day in the quarter.