Bharti Airtel Mega Rs 25,000 Crore Rights Issue Kicks Off

Shares of billionaire Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel surged in trade on Friday morning, after the firm’s Rs 25,000 crore rights issue opened for subscription. Bharti Airtel share price gained more than 2.6% to hit the day’s high at Rs 333.15 on BSE. The rights issue will remain open till May 17, and the last date for requesting for split application form is May 10, 2019.

Notably, Bharti Airtel has fixed April 24th  as the ‘record date’ to determine the eligibility of the shareholders. As a part of the issue, Bharti Airtel looks to raise up to Rs 25,000 crore by issuing fully paid up shares at a share price of Rs 220 per share, and an additional Rs 7,000 crore via foreign currency perpetual bond issue. The telecom firm has fixed the entitlement ratio at 19 shares for every 67 shares held.

Bharti Airtel had noted that the capital infusion will to make investments in to build large network capacity and create content and technology partnerships to in the attempt to ensure the strong customer experience. Earlier, Airtel had received commitment from its single-largest shareholder Singtel, promoters, and GIC Singapore to participate in the Rs 32,000 crore capital raising programme.

On Wednesday, Bharti Airtel had announced that its Africa operations net profit has grown to $83 million for the quarter ended March 31, as comapred to a net loss of $49 million in the comparable period previous fiscal. The profit rose on account of an increase in users of its Airtel Money platform and rising data consumption. In the latest quarter, the EBITDA rose 16% on-year to $354 million. “The total (Africa) customer base using the Airtel Money platform increased by 24 percent to 14.2 million, as compared to 11.5 million the previous year,” Bharti Airtel said in a statement.―Financial Express