Singtel, the single largest shareholder of Bharti Airtel, will subscribe to its full entitlement in the forthcoming rights issue of the Sunil Mittal-led entity.
Bharti Airtel plans to raise Rs 21,000 crore from the issue which will open on October 5.
The telco has fixed September 28 as the record date for the rights entitlement in the issue. On August 29, the company’s board had approved the rights issue at a price of Rs 535 per share.
“Singtel intends to subscribe to Airtel’s rights issue at an issue price of Rs 535 per share for a total consideration of up to Rs 2,940 crore.
“This represents Singtel’s full rights entitlement for its direct stake of 14 per cent. Upon closing of the rights issue, Singtel will continue to be Airtel’s single largest shareholder,” it said in a statement.
According to Arthur Lang, group chief financial officer, Singtel, the participation in
the rights offer underscores its confidence in Airtel’s prospects.
Meanwhile, data released by Trai showed that Jio gained 65.1 lakh subscribers in July while Airtel added 19.42 lakh customers during the month. Following the huge subscriber addition, the wireless user base of Jio swelled to 44.32 crore while Airtel’s total wireless subscriber number rose to 35.40 crore.
However, Vodafone Idea lost 14.3 lakh wireless users resulting in its subscriber count dropping to 27.19 crore.