Bharti Airtel Shares Drop 3% After Promoter Group Stake Sale.
Shares of Bharti Airtel fell nearly 3% on Wednesday following heavy trading activity indicating a likely stake sale by a promoter group entity. Early pressure on the stock came from a block deal worth around Rs 7,600 crore.
Approximately 3.5 crore Airtel shares — around 0.6% of the company’s equity — were sold at Rs 2,108 each in the block deal window, slightly below Tuesday’s closing price of Rs 2,161.60 on the NSE. The seller was Indian Continent Investment (ICIL), a promoter group entity holding 1.48% of Airtel’s shares as of September 30.
By mid-session, Airtel was trading at Rs 2,114, down 2.20% after hitting a low of Rs 2,097.50. This follows earlier stake sales this month, including a 5.1 crore-share sale by Singtel, which raised over $1 billion (around Rs 10,800 crore). ICIL has also sold shares in August, while Singtel’s investment arm Pastel Ltd executed a block deal earlier this month.
Goldman Sachs (India) Securities acted as the sole placement agent for Wednesday’s transaction, carried out via bulk trades on NSE and BSE platforms.
Despite the share sale, Airtel’s recent financial performance remains strong. The company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 6,791 crore in Q2, up 14.2% from Rs 5,948 crore in the previous quarter and above Street expectations of Rs 6,600 crore. Revenue grew 5.4% sequentially to Rs 52,145 crore, while EBITDA rose 6.2% to Rs 29,561 crore, with the margin inching up to 56.7% from 56.3%.
Comments are closed.