Bharti Airtel surges on pact to acquire mobile biz of Tata Teleservices

Bharti Airtel surged 5.91% to Rs 423.70 at 9:24 IST on BSE after the company entered into an agreement to acquire consumer mobile businesses from Tata Teleservices.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 12 October 2017.

Shares of Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (TTML) were locked at 10% upper circuit at Rs 4.86.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 153.68 points or 0.48% at 32,335.90.

On the BSE, 1.51 lakh shares of Bharti Airtel were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 1.05 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 430 and a low of Rs 421 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 438 on 28 August 2017 and a 52-week low of Rs 283.95 on 9 November 2016.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 12 October 2017, sliding 1.2% compared with the Sensex's 0.07% rise. The stock had also underperformed the market over the past one quarter, advancing 0.72% as against the Sensex's 1.19% rise. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market over the past one year, gaining 26.56% as against the Sensex's 14.6% rise.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 1998.70 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.

Bharti Airtel and Tata, India's leading conglomerate, announced that they have entered into an understanding to merge consumer mobile businesses (CMB) of Tata Teleservices (TTSL) and TTML into Bharti Airtel. The acquisition is subject to requisite regulatory approvals. As part of the agreement, Bharti Airtel will absorb Tata CMB's operations across the country in nineteen circles (17 under TTSL and 2 under TTML). These circles represent bulk of India's population and customer base.

The proposed merger will include transfer of all the customers and assets of Tata CMB to Bharti Airtel, further augmenting Bharti Airtel's overall customer base and network. The merger is being done on a debt-free cash-free basis, except for Bharti Airtel assuming a small portion of the unpaid spectrum liability of Tata's towards the DoT, which is to be paid on deferred basis. The employees of Tata will be demerged on the lines of the two businesses i.e. CMB and EFL (enterprise and fixed line and broadband), and post an optimal manpower planning will be moved accordingly. Tata will retain its stake in Viom, and will take care of the liabilities associated with it.

Separately, Bharti Airtel said that its board approved the scheme of amalgamation of Tikona Digital Networks with itself and their respective shareholders and creditors.

Bharti Airtel's consolidated net profit fell 58.4% to Rs 617.70 crore on 14% decline in revenue to Rs 21958.10 crore in Q1 June 2017 over Q1 June 2016.

Bharti Airtel is a leading global telecommunications company.

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