Leading telecom carrier Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said it had offloaded 83 million shares of its subsidiary Bharti Infratel for Rs 3,325 crore through secondary share sale in the stock market.
In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange today, Bharti Airtel said the sale was executed at a price of Rs 400.6 per share, offering a discount of 3.6 per cent to the previous day's closing price. The proceeds from this sale will be used to pare its debt, the company said in a BSE filling.
Bharti Airtel and its wholly owned subsidiaries now hold an equity of 53.51 per cent in Bharti Infratel following the closure of this transaction. Airtel's consolidated debt stood at Rs 91,480 crore as on September 2017.
"The sale was for a total consideration of over Rs 3,325 crore ($510 million) and was executed at a price of Rs 400.6 per share, representing a discount of 3.6 per cent to the previous day's closing price," the company said, adding that the allocation was done to global investors, fund managers and long-only funds, including many repeat investors.
Bharti Airtel's net profit for the July-September quarter plunged by a whopping 77 per cent from a year earlier, amid a fierce price war unleashed by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio.
Airtel reported a mere Rs 343 crore in net profit for the second quarter, down substantially from Rs 1,461 crore it posted in the July - September quarter of 2016-17.
Airtel's second quarter net profit is its smallest in 19 quarters and its sixth consecutive drop in quarterly profit.
