Vi, the telecom joint venture between UK’s Vodafone Group Plc and India’s Aditya Birla Group, on Thursday said it is taking appropriate steps to divest the US tower company that recently sold its Indian tower business to Canada’s Brookfield.
“…the Company has received from existing OCD holders in respect of outstanding 1,600 OCDs Rs. 10 per share at a conversion price of Rs. A conversion notice has been received for conversion into 16 crore fully paid up equity shares of face value of Rs. The company will take necessary steps to allot equity shares to OCD holders against conversion of these OCDs,” Wee said in an exchange filing late on Thursday evening.
Shares of Vi on the BSE on Thursday fell about 0.5% to Rs. It closed at 16.56. According to company insiders, ATC India holds around 0.2% stake in Vi after the conversion.
In February 2023, Vi paid ATC Telecom Infrastructure Pvt Ltd against its due Rs. 1,600 crore OCD was allotted. VA ATC is charged around Rs. 2,000 crore debt was estimated.
In March 2024, ATC India initially called for Vi to convert 14,400 OCDs into 144 crore fully paid equity shares, or about 2.9% stake. The stake is said to have been sold by ATC India at an average price of Rs 12.78.
In January 2024, Canada’s Brookfield acquired ATC’s India unit for $2.5-billion (about Rs 21,000 crore), which is likely to close in the second half of 2024. ATC, however, said at the time that it would retain the full economic benefit associated with it. with OCDs issued to it by Vi, and shall be entitled to future payments relating to existing ATC India procurement.
Neither Vi nor ATC responded to ET’s questions regarding ATC TIPL’s potential share in Vi after the conversion.
The latest development was recently through the equity route around Rs. 23,000 crore comes on the heels of Vi. A long-term loan from a banking consortium led by Telecom SBI and another Rs. 10,000 crore through bank guarantees and a further Rs. 23,000 crore debt collection.
Vi will invest around Rs. 10,000 over the next three years towards 4G expansion and 5G rollout in its priority markets. 55,000 crore capital expenditure target. This is important for Vi to prevent customer losses and compete more effectively with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, which have already rolled out 5G networks across India.
(You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel)
