Voda Group, Aditya Birla may dilute stake in Voda Idea
- ByStartupStory | July 26, 2021
Voda Group, Aditya Birla may dilutestake in Voda Idea. Vodafone Group Plc and Aditya Birla Group may not take control of Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) if a strategic investor wants to take control of the telco, a close source reported. The development marks a new way out, on the part of Vodafone Idea’s promoters, who were initially looking to bring in financial investors but have not been successful in raising the required funds, putting a question mark on the telco’s survival, according to some unofficial reports. Vodafone Idea’s UK parent owns a 45% stake in the company, and the Indian promoter group, which includes Kumar Mangalam Birla and Aditya Birla Group firms, holds a 26% stake. “The two promoter groups are open to the option of doing away with a majority stake or transfer control,” said the first person, adding that this option will be considered only if the foreign entities agree to pay a premium to the prevailing market price of Vodafone Idea so that the company gets enough funding to take care of the telco’s ballooning dues.
Vodafone Idea’s current market value is ₹24,000 crore, and if an equity deal of $2 billion ( ₹15,000 crore) happens at the current stock price, the promoter holding will get diluted by 62.5%, which means Vodafone Group’s holding will come down to around 28% and Aditya Birla group’s holding will be lowered to around 16.25%. Vodafone Idea’s stock hit the lower circuit twice on Friday after the Supreme Court dismissed the telco’s plea to allow payment of self-assessed AGR dues that are way lower than the one demanded by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The shares fell 10% to ₹8.36 on BSE. The telco desperately needs to raise capital to deal with its liabilities of ₹1.8 lakh crore. The government has demanded ₹58,254 crore as AGR dues from Vodafone idea, while the company has self-assessed this at ₹21,533 crore. Vodafone has so far paid only ₹7,854 crore.
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