Bharti Airtel jumped 4% to Rs 303.65 at 14:33 IST after Singapore Telecommunications, or SingTel, said it has agreed to increase its effective stake in the company to 31.95% from 30.43%.
SingTel had made the announcement on Saturday, 31 October 2009.
Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 257.97 points, or 1.62%, to 15638.31.
On BSE, 40.15 lakh shares were traded in the counter as against an average daily volume of 22.34 lakh shares in the past one quarter.
The stock hit a high of Rs 307.65 and a low of Rs 280.05 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 495 on 19 May 2009 and a 52-week low of Rs 272 on 12 March 2009.
The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 30 October 2009, sliding 30.20% as compared to the Sensex 7.18% fall. It underperformed the market in past one quarter, slumping 31.02% as against 3.30% rise in the Sensex.
India's largest listed telecom company by sales has an equity capital of Rs 1898.42 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.
The current price of Rs 303.65 discounts the company's Q2 September 2009 annualised EPS of Rs 24.20, by a PE multiple of 12:54.
Asia's leading telecommunications company Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Pastel, has executed a conditional share purchase agreement with the Bharti Group to hike its stake in Bharti Telecom, promoter company of Bharti Airtel.
Under this agreement, SingTel will acquire additional 7.30 lakh shares in Bharti Telecom, which holds about 45.3% stake in Bharti Airtel.
Following this deal, SingTel's effective stake in Bharti Telecom will stand increased to 36.16% from the current level of 32.81% while its effective stake in Bharti Airtel will go up by 1.52% to 31.95%.
SingTel will make an estimated payment between Rs 1,807.3 crore and Rs 3,008.4 crore over a period of more than a year for this acquisition. The move will enable SingTel to maximize value of its existing businesses.
In a separate development, Bharti Airtel has unveiled its per second billing plan, 'Freedom Plan', which is expected to further intensify the tariff war in the fastest growing telecom market of the world.
The subscribers of this plan will be charged one paise per second for all local and STD calls on Airtel networks while for other networks local and STD call charges will be Rs 1.20.
On a consolidated basis as per Indian accounting standards, Bharti Airtel's net profit rose 35% to Rs 2254.17 crore on a 16% increase in sales to Rs 10355.16 crore in Q2 September 2009 over Q2 September 2008. The result was announced during trading hours on 30 October 2009, when the stock had tumbled 6.38% at Rs 292.15.
Bharti Airtel provides mobile telecommunication services in India. It also provides fixed-line, VSAT, Internet and broadband services.