5.5 Lakh Retail Investors buy Vodafone Idea shares in Q4; FPO subscribed more than 6 times
Vodafone Idea, the debt-ridden telecom provider that successfully concluded its Rs.18,000 crore FPO on Monday, saw its retail shareholding increase by 55 lakhs to 36.2 lakh in the March quarter.
Retail investors’ shareholding, defined as holdings of up to Rs.2 lakh in the company, increased from 3.32% in December 2023 to 3.7% in the March quarter of 2024. Individual investors who invested more than Rs.2 lakh in the company’s equity boosted their shareholding from 6.06% to 6.17%.
The Vodafone FPO, which is greater than Yes Bank’s Rs.15,000-crore FPO in 2020, was open for anchor investors on April 16 and retail investors on April 18, and concluded on Monday. The FPO shares will be launched on the exchanges on April 25.
As per the date on BSE, the third-largest telecom operator of the country, which intends to use the FPO proceeds to launch 5G services and upgrade existing 2G customers to 4G, received the most excessive subscriptions from foreign institutional investors, followed by mutual funds (MF) and domestic financial institutions as qualified institutional buyers. This chunk of shares generated bids of roughly Rs.88,000 crore.
According to BSE data as of 7 p.m., non-institutional investors subscribed 4.54 times, while retail investors subscribed entirely.
The company has already received Rs. 5,400 crore from anchor investors such as Fidelity Investments, GQG Partners, Jupiter Fund Management, UBS Fund Management, and Australian Super, as well as domestic investors like India Infoline, Motilal Oswal, HDFC Mutual Fund, SBI General Insurance, and Quant.
Last week, the carrier allocated 4.9 billion shares to anchor investors for Rs.11 per share. GQG Partners, based in the US, received the most shares (worth Rs.1,345 crore), followed by Fidelity Investments, which invested approximately Rs.772 crore.
Vodafone Idea’s current debt is Rs.2.1 trillion, which includes approximately Rs.1.3 trillion for spectrum and an additional Rs.65,000 crore for a revenue-sharing scheme with the government.
