Shares of Indus Towers climbed 2 percent on Tuesday, February 14 after reports said Vodafone Idea is looking to refinance its loans.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) has initiated talks with Indian banks like the State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB) and HDFC Bank to refinance loans of ₹3,000-4,000 crore, ET reported.
During Tuesday’s trade, the stock opened at a price of Rs. 164.70 per share closely against the previous close of Rs. 164.65 per share and grew further during the early trading session to touch an intraday high of Rs. 168.
It was trading at ₹166.60, up by 0.88 percent at 10:40 a.m. on the BSE.
The stock touched a 52-week-high of Rs. 269 on February 16, 2022 and a 52-week-low of Rs. 135.35 on January 27, 2023, indicating that at the current level, the stock is trading 23 percent above its 52-week low and 38 percent below its 52 week high.
The stock has dipped over 9 percent in the last one month. Moreover, in the past six months, it has declined by nearly 15 percent. Furthermore, the stock has yielded a negative return of almost 33 percent in the last one year.
This is expected to free up some cash for the telco, which needs to pay urgently to Indus Towers, Nokia and Ericsson. In September this year, Vi must pay ₹9,600 crore worth of debt to different lenders.
It owes ₹7,000 crore to Indus Towers alone. As of September 2022, its total debt stands at ₹2.2 trillion.
Last month in January, Indus Towers had made provision of doubtful debt worth ₹2,298.1 crores on account of the troubled balance sheet of VIL.
It is in the process of issuing optionally convertible debentures of up to ₹1,600 crores to vendor American Tower Corporation to clear its dues.
On 7 February, Vodafone Idea announced that it had converted its accrued interest towards adjusted gross revenue (AGR) arrears into government equity. This transaction gave the Centre a 33.44 per cent stake in the telco.
Indus Towers Limited is an India-based telecom tower company. The company is a provider of tower and related infrastructure, and deploys, owns and manages telecom towers and communication structures for various mobile operators. The company’s portfolio consists of approximately 184,748 telecom towers, which includes 335,106 co-locations and is covering approximately 22 telecom circles in India.
According to a Mintgenie poll, an average of 20 analysts have a ‘HOLD’ call on the stock.
