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NEW DELHI: Vodafone Idea<\/a> and its promoters have called upon the government to speed up the process of conversion of interest on deferred adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues into government equity, saying it’s critical to the cash-strapped telco’s efforts to raise funds from external investors.
“Senior executives have met officials and said that the conversion would help expedite bringing potential investors on board,” a senior government official said, asking not to be named.
Loss-making Vodafone Idea had declared March end as the deadline for raising fresh funds which will help it to cut debt and invest in its network to take on Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel more effectively. It began its fund-raising process in the first week of March with its board approving raising of Rs14,500 crore from its promoters – UK’s Vodafone Group and India’s Aditya Birla Group (ABG) - and external investors.
Out of this, the Rs 4,500 crore that it will raise through a preferential share issue at Rs13.30 a share to its promoters or its related entities should be cleared by end of this month, with an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders scheduled for March 26. But raising the more critical Rs10,000 crore from external investors is set to be pushed to the next fiscal year.
An email sent to the Aditya Birla Group (ABG) and Vodafone Idea remained unanswered.
The Vodafone Idea stock ended Tuesday down 0.2% at Rs10.05 on the BSE.
Government officials, on their part, say that the process to convert the accrued interest on deferred AGR dues will take its time, since it needs multiple clearances.
“The conversion will go through the normal procedure which includes clearance from Dipam (Department of Investment and Public Asset Management) and it could be time consuming…that is procedural,” the official said.