Bharti Airtel’s board approved the raising of up to Rs.7,500 crore via debt instruments, either in one go or in tranches. In addition, the board of Bharti Airtel has also authorized the Special Committee of Directors to finalize and approve the terms and conditions, quantum of tranche and timing. This could be through issuance of secured or unsecured bonds in either currency. Bharti Airtel also reported results on Tuesday reporting a small fall in net profit in Q3 despite operating gains, due to exceptional gains in Dec-20 quarter.
On the listing day, the stock of Adani Wilmar (AWL) closed more than 16% higher, despite a weak listing in the morning. On the NSE, the stock listed at Rs.227 against the IPO price of Rs.230. However, post listing, AWL bounced back sharply. The total value of shares traded in the day were Rs.3,397 crore on the NSE and Rs.191 crore on the BSE. The Rs.3,600 crore IPO of Adani Wilmar had been subscribed more than 17 times. AWL enjoys highest market share in branded edible oil and FY21 net profits were Rs.728 crore.
Now, there are 2 bidders for the consumer durables business of the Videocon group. The Adani group and Jindal Power expressed interest to buy Videocon’s consumer durable business. This had been put up on sale for the second time by its lenders. Videocon had been referred to the NCLT with outstanding debts of Rs.64,000 crore. Earlier Vedanta had offered 95% haircut, bidding Rs.3,000 crore, which was not taken up. Meanwhile, Reliance group has entered into a separate race to buy the oil and gas assets of Videocon.
Anil Agarwal decided to give up on his controversial plan to merge holding company Vedanta Resources PLC with its cash-rich India operations. The plan has been officially dropped for now. Also, Vedanta has decided to drop plans of separating its aluminium, steel and oil/gas businesses as listed entities. Instead, Vedanta wants to concentrate on profitability and free cash flows. The India unit of Vedanta has been one of the top performers in last 1 year amidst the commodity boom. Its leverage of 0.7x is best in peer group.
ICICI Bank decided to convert 4 million convertible warrants of Fino PayTech into equity. This will increase ICICI Bank’s stake in Fino PayTech to 7.4%. Prior to this deal, ICICI Bank already held 4.6% stake in Fino. It may be recollected that Fino PayTech is primarily engaged in providing technology-based solutions apart from services related to financial inclusion. The dividing line between banks and Fintech players has been increasingly becoming blurred and most banks are looking to add a Fintech play to their existing palate.
Blackrock, world’s largest asset manager with $10 trillion AUM, Blackrock, flagged Substantial Accounting irregularities at SpiceJet. Blackrock voted against the reappointment of Shivani Singh as director and it also objected to the adoption of the financial statements after serious qualifications by the auditor. It is a positive signal that large foreign investors are wielding their clout to enforce better governance in Indian companies. Auditor Walker Chandiok had objected to treating Boeing compensation as other income.
Indian government plans to go for re-bidding of the non-core assets of BSNL and MTNL. It had got very lacklustre response in the first round. Earlier, in the first round, DIPAM had put up 6 properties of BSNL and MTNL for sale for a base price of Rs.970 crore via the MSTC portal. The monetisation of the non-core assets of MTNL and BSNL was part of the Rs.68,000 crore revival package announced in 2019. If it works, this may become the template wherein non-core assets will be divested before selling the PSU business.
HFCL has signed a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro for its “IO” line of products. This IO line of HFCL includes WiFi-5 and WiFi-6 access points, point-to-point unlicensed band radios, L2 and L3 switches and specialised antennas. Ingram Micro has strong channel distribution across India and SAARC countries. Currently, HCFL is among the largest suppliers of telecom equipment to telecom service providers and ISPs. HFCL specializes in flexible, customised and reliable “Make in India” access solutions for customers.
