Did not consider stake sale talks price-sensitive: Kingfisher

Facing flak from the exchanges for not informing them about stake sale talks, Kingfisher Airlines today said the matter was not disclosed to the bourses first as the carrier did not consider it as a "price-sensitive information".

The NSE and the BSE yesterday had sent letters seeking clarifications from Kingfisher regarding reports about stake sale.

"The company is in talks with foreign carriers as well as domestic investors to sell a stake, pertains to a statement of a very general nature, which in our view can hardly be classified as price-sensitive information, given that these are self-evidently at preliminary stages," Kingfisher informed the National Stock Exchange.

According to Kingfisher, the fact that the company has been attempting to raise much-needed capital over the last two years pursuant to shareholders resolutions approving the same and duly reported to the stock exchanges, has been widely reported in the media for a long time.

"We would like to clarify that even this general non-price sensitive information was shared with the shareholders only as a response to the queries raised by various shareholders regarding equity investment in the company, at the venue of the Annual General Meeting of the company held on September 26, 2012," it said.

Responding to the letter from the BSE, Kingfisher said it is unable to find in the report anything of a price-sensitive nature or information not already in the public domain, attributed to having emanated from the company.

"In any case, it is our humble submission that the company has obligations to the stock exchange regarding dissemination by the company of price-sensitive information and not in the case of information of a general nature in the ordinary course of business, or in respect of information that is already in the public domain," it said.

Shares of the company fell 4.95% to close at Rs 16.12 on the BSE. The scrip dropped 4.72% on the NSE to end the day at Rs 16.15.

Kingfisher owes over Rs 7,000 crore to 17 banks in the long-term debt and has accumulated losses of around Rs 8,000 crore.

The carrier, which is deep in the red, is in talks with its lenders to thrash out revival plan.