Vi board to consider fundraising through convertible debentures on Friday; details here

Vodafone Idea Ltd’s board of directors will meet on Friday, 21 October, to consider fundraising via convertible debentures, the company stated in an exchange filing on Wednesday, 19 October. This will give Vi more time for the payment of dues and allow it to keep running operations. Two people aware of the development told Mint that the vendor could be telecom tower infrastructure company Indus Towers. Vodafone Idea has unpaid dues of over Rs 7,000 crore to Indus according to the report in Mint. As of the June quarter, the overall debt of Vodafone Idea was Rs 1.98 lakh crore. Last month, Indus Towers warned the firm of service closure because of non-payment of dues according to CNBC-TV18.

One person with news of the move went on to say that this step will offer Vi time beyond the stipulated period given by Indus for settling the dues, which ends next month. He stated that this arrangement is going to be helpful for Indus as well even though it may not receive cash immediately in lieu of the pending dues, but if it stops giving services to Vi, it will result in a loss of revenues as the dues will continue to be perpetually unpaid.

The Aditya Birla Group-owned carrier, which has over 260 million subscribers, has yet to conclude its fundraising of over Rs 20,000 crore, which it needs to be competitive in the industry. To add to its troubles rivals Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are putting out aggressive plans to introduce 5G services. The top two carriers have signed up vendors for 5G telecom gear to be utilised for deploying the networks, but Vodafone Idea is yet to finalise the contracts.

According to the company, it is in talks with Indus Towers over clearing the payment of pending dues. It stated that it is in discussion for softer payment terms, which has not been concluded yet.

The firm decided in September that it will not convert its deferred Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) into equity for the financial years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.

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