Shares of Bharti Infratel slipped 4.5 percent intraday on Thursday as Bharti Airtel is selling shares in the company. Bharti Airtel will sell up to 72.5 million shares of its tower unit through which it could raise over Rs 2600 crore.
"We wish to inform that Bharti Airtel Limited has decided to sell up to 55 million equity shares (with an upsize option of up to 17.5 million additional equity shares) of its subsidiary company Bharti Infratel Limited tomorrow i.e. February 26, 2015 through stock exchanges," the company said in a regulatory filing.
According to sources, the operator is raising the amount as it prepares itself for the upcoming spectrum auction, scheduled to start from March 4.
The sources said that Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS will be the merchant bankers to the issue. At the current market price, the share sale could fetch over Rs 2,600 crore.
Bharti Airtel has 74.85 percent stake in Bharti Infratel as of December 2014. Bharti Infratel had reported a 23 percent jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 507 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2014, riding on the back of operators’ focus on fast roll-out of data networks.
Consolidated revenue of the tower firm rose eight per cent to Rs 2,949 crore for the reported period as compared to Rs. 2,731 crore for the same period last year. The total tower base of the company stood at 85,064 as on December 31, 2014 along with 4,478 co-locations, while the average sharing factor increased to 2.08 from 1.96 in the same period last year
At 09:52 hrs Bharti Infratel was at Rs 354.05, down Rs 16.75, or 4.52 percent while Bharti Airtel was at Rs 350.00, up Rs 2.20, or 0.63 percent on the BSE.
(With inputs from PTI)
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