Idea QIP price at a marginal discount

Mumbai: Idea Cellular has fixed an issue price of Rs 82.50 per share for the sale of shares through a qualified institutional placement (QIP).

The QIP issue will raise as much as Rs 3,500 crore.

"The capital raising committee of the company at its meeting on Wednesday approved the closure of the issue for the QIP," Idea Cellular, which is in the process of being merged with Vodafone India, said in a filing to stock exchanges on Wednesday.

The committee "determined and approved the issue price of Rs 82.50 per equity shares for issuance of 42.42 crore equity shares, aggregating Rs 3,500 crore, to the eligible qualified institutional buyers in the QIP," the filing said.

The issue price is at a marginal discount to the closing price of Idea Cellular on Wednesday. The scrip closed at Rs 83.25 on the BSE.

Birla TMT, Elaine Investments, Oriana Investments - the controlling shareholders of Idea Cellular - have recently invested Rs 3,250 crore to strengthen the company's balance sheet before the planned merger with Vodafone India.

Following the QIP, their stake in the country's third-largest telecom operator will rise to 47.2 per cent from 42.4 per cent at present.

Last month, Idea Cellular had said that the proposed capital raising along with the sale of its standalone towers to American Tower Corp as well as the sale of the firm's 11.15 per cent stake in Indus Towers Ltd will augment long-term capital resources.

The fund-raising will help the company fight intense competition being witnessed by the telecom sector following the entry of Reliance Jio.

The QIP issue comes after a disappointing third quarter for the company which saw net losses at the Aditya Birla group company widening to Rs 1,285 crore compared with Rs 384 crore in the same period last year.

On a consolidated basis, Idea Cellular's revenues fell to Rs 6,510 crore from Rs 8,706 crore in the corresponding period of last year.

Idea Cellular blamed the higher loss to the cut in interconnection user charge (IUC) coupled with the pressure on voice and data tariff.

Telecom regulator Trai had reduced the mobile termination charge from October 1 last year to 6 paise from 14 paise, which impacted its revenues.

IDEA Cellular Limited