Shares of Bharti Airtel succumbed to selling pressure and tumbled nearly 3% after a block deal worth Rs 5,642 crore took place in the counter, with Singtel being the likely seller.
The stake sale comes on the heels of Bharti Airtel's shares hovering near all-time highs, buoyed by the market's upbeat sentiment following the company’s impressive Q4 earnings
Shares of Bharti Airtel succumbed to selling pressure and tumbled nearly 3% after a block deal worth Rs 5,642 crore took place in the counter, with Singtel being the likely seller.
Around 3.1 crore shares of Bharti Airtel, making up a 1.3% stake in the company changed hands on the exchanges in a block deal. The transaction was executed at a floor price of Rs 1,820 per share, reflecting a 2.5% discount to the last closing price.
While there’s no confirmation over the parties involved in the transaction yet, CNBC-TV18 did report that Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) was eyeing to offload nearly 5 crore shares in Bharti Airtel.
As per the report, Singtel was looking to make around Rs 8,500 crore or nearly $1-bn off of the stake sale. Singtel currently holds a 9.49% stake in the Indian telecom major, through its affiliate Pastel Ltd, as per the company’s latest shareholding data.
The stake sale comes at a time when shares of Bharti Airtel are flirting with their all-time highs, with sentiment for the stock lifted after a stellar Q4 earnings show.
Bharti Airtel ended the March quarter on a high, posting a consolidated net profit of Rs 11,022 crore, a staggering leap from Rs 2,072 crore in the same period last year. A major boost came from a one-time exceptional tax gain of Rs 4,233 crore, but even after accounting for that, the company’s profit more than tripled year-on-year, pointing towards strong underlying growth.
Revenue also painted a promising picture. Consolidated revenue for Q4 jumped 27% on year to Rs 47,876 crore, buoyed by consistent performance across business segments. The mobile ARPU (average revenue per user), a key metric for telecoms, rose to Rs 245 from Rs 209 a year ago, though it held steady compared to the previous quarter.
The stellar growth comes in the backdrop of a tariff hike that Airtel implemented in the July quarter of last year, meaning the base period had significantly lower prices, amplifying the year-on-year spike. Airtel's subscriber base in India climbed to 42.4 crore during the March quarter, further cementing its strong position in the market.
For the full financial year, the telecom giant recorded a near fourfold surge in net profit to Rs 33,556 crore as compared to Rs 7,467 crore in FY24. Annual revenue also grew a solid 15.33%, to Rs 1.72 lakh crore, up from Rs 1.49 lakh crore the previous year.