Vodafone Idea (Vi), listed as Idea on the stock exchanges, is gaining in the early trade session on Tuesday. At the time of writing, Vi’s stock is trading (at the time of writing) at Rs 9.80, which is 2.62%, up from the previous close price of Rs 9.55. The third-largest telco’s shares opened at Rs 9.65 and touched a high of Rs 10.05. In the last few days, multiple developments around Vi getting investments from promoters and external investors, as well as bank guarantees from the government, have come up. The telco’s board has already approved the money-raising exercise, and a special shareholders meeting has been scheduled for March 26, 2022, for the same.
Motilal Oswal Gives Vodafone Idea a Neutral Rating
Many analysts said that the funds that would come from the promoters wouldn’t be adequate for the company. However, at the same time, Vi is also trying to get back around Rs 15,000 crore worth of bank guarantees (BGs) from the government. If the telco is further able to raise another Rs 10,000 crore from the outside investors excluding Rs 4500 crore from the promoters, it will come in sort of a stable position. Motilal Oswal has rated the telco Neutral for now. All that the telco needs to do right now is match its capex levels with that of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. Along with that, Vi needs surplus amounts of money to be able to participate in a decent capacity in the 5G spectrum auctions. The 5G spectrum auctions aren’t too far now as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is working on submitting the recommendations to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) within the deadline of March-end. This can mean that the 5G spectrum auctions can take place during the month of May or June 2022. In another two to three months, the telcos can come out with commercial live 5G networks. It will be interesting to see how things pan out for Vodafone Idea in the coming months.
