Sterlite Technologies up 4% as arm acquires 13% stake in Israel-based ASOCS

Sterlite Technologies advanced 4.4 per cent to Rs 129.8 on the BSE on Friday after the company announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Sterlite Global Venture would acquire 12.8 per cent stake in ASOCS, a vRAN technology company based out of Israel.

According to the company's exchange filing, ASOCS is a pioneer in virtual Radio Access Networks (vRAN) and a provider of "fully virtualized, NFV-compatible virtual Base Station solutions for Enterprise and Telco-Networks".

The company did not disclose the transaction value, but said that the cash consideration would be paid in two tranches, one as on date, and one in May 2020.  READ STATEMENT HERE

"The joint solution of STL and ASOCS will empower mobile network operators to build best-in-class networks and enable them to build vendor-neutral, autonomous mobile networks using 5G radio, SDN, NFV and AI technologies", Anand Agarwal, Group chief executive officer at Sterlite Technologies said. 

At 9:51 am, the stock was trading 3.26 per cent higher at Rs 128.3 per share, as against a 0.27 per cent rise in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex. In the past month, Sterlite Technologies has outperformed the benchmark Sensex by gaining 4.6 per cent. In comparison, the index added 2.3 per cent till Thursday. 

Recently, the fibre and wireless networks firm bagged a high speed rural broadband network project from Telangana Fiber Grid Corporation Ltd. (T-Fiber) worth Rs 1,800 crore. 

"STL was awarded a work order for about Rs 1,100 crore for Phase- 1 of the project. The total project value is worth about Rs 1,800 crore for which the company has received the letter of intent... This turnkey project entails designing and building an end-to-end rural broadband network across 11 districts, 3000 gram panchayats of Telangana and managing the network for an additional seven years. The project has a significant O&M revenue stream, close to 30 per cent of the overall project value," it said in a statement. READ HERE

The company is scheduled to report its December quarter results (Q3FY20) on January 15. During the July-September quarter, the company logged a 22 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in net profit at Rs 160 crore. Its consolidated revenue jumped 25 per cent to Rs 1,360 crore during Q2FY20 from Rs 1,084 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2018-19.