Mumbai, June 19: The Tatas and Japanese telecom giant NTT DoCoMo have decided to forego their rights to bonus shares that Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd plans to issue subject to shareholders’ approval.

It is rare for promoters to renounce bonus shares, which potentially reduce the promoters’ stake in the company.

Promoters hold 77.21 per cent in TTML.

While NTT DoCoMo owns 12.12 per cent in the company as a result of its investment in TTML parent Tata Teleservices, the Tatas hold just over 65 per cent in the company.

In a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange today, TTML said the board of directors “propose to… issue bonus shares with the promoter/promoter group forgoing their entitlement to the bonus shares”.

The notice said the company intended to call an extraordinary general meeting of the shareholders where their approval for the bonus issue would be sought.

The company, which was formed in 1995 as Hughes Ispat Ltd, has never come out with a bonus issue. It was renamed as Hughes Tele.com in 2000 and taken over by the Tata group in 2002 and renamed as TTML, which is a subsidiary of the unlisted Tata Teleservices that provides mobile services in 21 other circles in the country.

Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) – which provides mobile and wireless services in Maharashtra and Goa – indicated that the bonus issue with promoters’ renunciation was designed to comply with market regulator Sebi’s public float rules.

All listed companies were required to ensure a public holding of at least 25 per cent by June 3.

The promoters had tried to offload 3.5 million shares through the offer-for-sale (OFS) route on May 30 at Rs 7.60 per share.

However, they received subscription for only 68,771 shares, or 0.2 per cent of the shares offered.

The TTML stock — which has been languishing for sometime — jumped almost 10 per cent to Rs 6.64 on the news.

Last month, Sebi had relaxed a rule permitting the Tatas to offload up to 2.72 per cent stake through sale on the market to unrelated non-promoter entities.

TTML reported a loss of Rs 115.23 crore in the fourth quarter of 2012-13 (January to March) on net sales of Rs 681.19 crore.

It has suffered losses in the last six quarters dating back to the quarter ended December 2011.