Vodafone Idea rallies 54% from Tuesday's low ahead of fund raising meet

Shares of Vodafone Idea (VIL) rallied 20 per cent, up for the second straight day, to Rs 11.88 on the BSE on Thursday ahead of its board meeting on Friday to consider fund raising plan. The telecom services provider's stock had ended 11 per cent higher on Wednesday.

With the past two day’s surge, the share price of VIL has zoomed 54 per cent from Rs 7.69, touched in intra-day trade on September 1. On Tuesday, VIL's stock had ended 13 per cent lower at Rs 8.89 after the Supreme Court allowed staggered payments towards settlement of Adjusted Gross Revenues (AGR) dues. It allowed for a 10-year repayment period for the AGR liability (at 8 per cent MCLR), with 10 per cent of total dues to be paid upfront on March 31, 21 and the rest in annual payments from March’22.

After market hours on Tuesday, VIL informed the stock exchanges that “A meeting of the board of directors of the Company is scheduled to be held on September 4, 2020 to consider and evaluate any and all proposals for raising of funds in one or more tranches by way of a public issue, preferential allotment, private placement, including a qualified institutions placement or through any other permissible mode and/or combination thereof as may be considered appropriate, by way of issue of equity shares or by way of issue of any instruments or securities.” CLICK HERE FOR EXCHANGE FILING

VIL has already paid Rs 7,854 crore towards AGR due to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) as on date. 
 

Analysts at ICICI Securities expects VIL’s payout ability (as well as going concern promise) to be a near impossible feat unless there is an immediate fund infusion (already scheduled a board meet for the same) and a tariff hike coupled with customer churn arrest. "Interestingly, a substantial tariff hike, in our view, will be necessity to attract fund infusion from external investors," the brokerage firm said in telecom sector update.

Meanwhile, according to media reports, US wireless carrier Verizon Communications Inc and Amazon.com Inc may invest more than $4 billion for a stake in Vodafone Idea. CLICK HERE FOR FULL REPORT

At 02:12 pm, VIL was trading 19 per cent higher at Rs 11.79 on the BSE, against 0.03 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex. The trading volumes on the counter more-than-doubled with a combined 1,194 million equity shares changing hands on the NSE and BSE, so far.