Mumbai, April 22: Shares of Reliance Communications Ltd (R-Com) today surged on the stock exchanges after the Anil D. Ambani group company said it was in advanced talks for selling a stake in its enterprise business unit — Reliance Globalcom — to a consortium of PE funds that includes Samena Capital.

On the Bombay Stock Exchange, the R-Com scrip zoomed 13.47 per cent, or Rs 11.60, to end at Rs 97.70. This came after the share hit an intra-day peak of Rs 99 — its 52-week high on the bourses.

On the National Stock Exchange, the stock was up 13.18 per cent at Rs 97.45. Tracking gains in the stock, the market value of R-Com rose Rs 2,394 crore to Rs 20,165 crore.

The counter has surged nearly 80 per cent over the past one month on hopes of the management taking various steps that included select asset sales to bring down the whopping debt now estimated at around Rs 37,000 crore.

As part of this effort, R-Com had in March entered into an agreement with Reliance Jio Infocomm wherein the latter would use its optic fibre network for a one-time payment of Rs 1,200 crore.

Reliance Jio, a Mukesh D. Ambani group company, will pay charges to R-Com when it starts using its optic fibre network. Soon after the deal, there were reports of R-Com entering into negotiations with Bahrain Telecommunications (Batelco) for selling up to an 80 per cent stake in Reliance Globalcom.

However, last Saturday, the telecom carrier said in a statement to the stock exchanges that a consortium of PE funds led by Samena Capital was the frontrunner for the stake sale deal.

The consortium, which also includes Providence and Carlyle, may buy up to 80 per cent in the R-Com arm, which also owns the group’s undersea cable business, for around $1.2 billion.

The stake sale is expected to be used by R-Com to lower its debt burden, which stood at around Rs 37,000 crore as on December 31, 2012.