NEW DELHI: Ahead of its follow-on public offering (FPO), Vodafone Idea Limited (VI) has successfully secured Rs 5,400 crore from anchor investors. The telecom service provider, in an exchange filing, announced allotting 491 crore shares to anchor investors at Rs 11 per share.
The anchor investors include prominent names such as GQG Partners, Fidelity Investments, UBS Fund Management, Jupiter Fund Management, and Australian Super. From India, the investors are India Infoline, Motilal Oswal, HDFC Mutual Fund, SBI General Insurance, and Quant participated.
The US-based GQG Partners received the highest allocation Rs 1,345 crore. Fidelity Investments invested nearly Rs 772 crore in the FPO. Troo Capital and AustralianSuper will be contributing Rs 331 crore and Rs 130 crore, respectively. Similarly, about 16.2% of the total allocation, equivalent to Rs 874 crore, was allocated to five domestic mutual funds. Among them, the top position was secured by Motilal Oswal Midcap Fund with an investment of Rs 500 crore.
VIL aims to raise Rs 18,000 crore through the FPO. This follow-on offer is one of the biggest in the history of fundraising from Indian market, following Yes Bank’s Rs 15,000 crore and ONGC’s Rs 10,542 crore offerings. Last year, Adani Enterprises launched Rs 20,000 crore FPO, but it was cancelled. Therefore, if it is fully subscribed, the FPO will provide a major boost for the company.
The FPO is priced in the range of Rs 10-Rs 11 per share and will be open for retail investors from April 18 to April 22. The minimum bid lot for subscription has been fixed at 1,298 equity shares. Central government’s shareholding in VIL will come down from 33.1% to 24% after the FPO.
Akshaya Moondra, CEO, addressing press on Monday, said funds will be used to strengthen its 4G network and invest in 5G. It aims to launch its 5G services in the next six to nine months. Moondra said the telco proposes to use Rs 12,750 crore to buy equipment for expanding its network infra by setting up new 4G sites. It will spend Rs 5,720 crore of the Rs 12,750 crore earmarked for network expansion on setting up its 5G network.
“We have engaged with our vendors on 5G for quite some time. As you all understand that any order is dependent on funding. So, once the funding is there, our effort will be to expedite the ordering as quickly as possible. A lot of groundwork has happened, the trials have happened,” said Moondra.