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Bharti Airtel's AGR Case, Adani Ports' Stake Acquisition, and Buzzing Stocks Today
Thu, 26 Aug Pre-Open

Indian share markets ended on a flat note yesterday.

Benchmark indices scaled fresh lifetime highs but failed to hold on to gains as telecom and consumer durables stocks witnessed selling.

At the closing bell yesterday, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 15 points (down 0.1%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 10 points (up 0.1%).

Adani Ports and HDFC Life Insurance were among the top gainers.

Bajaj Finserv and Titan, on the other hand, were among the top losers.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index ended up by 0.6% and 0.7%, respectively.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the telecom sector, consumer durables sector and realty sector witnessing most of the selling pressure.

Oil & gas and power stocks, on the other hand, witnessed buying interest.

Shares of Tata Elxsi and Hindustan Aeronautics hit their respective 52-week highs.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX were trading down by 0.5% at Rs 47,375 per 10 grams at the time of closing stock market hours yesterday.

Speaking of the stock market, Brijesh Bhatia, Research Analyst at Fast Profits Report, shares a simple way to help you decide between intraday trading and swing trading, in his latest video for Fast Profits Daily.

Tune in to the video below to find out more:

Top Stocks in Focus Today

Among the buzzing stocks today will be Adani Ports & SEZ.

Adani Ports & SEZ share price rose over 2% on the BSE yesterday after the company received approval from the Andhra Pradesh government for acquiring a 10.4% stake in Gangavaram Port.

In an exchange filing, Adani Ports said,

  • The company has received a letter/order from the Andhra Pradesh Maritime Board dated 23 August 2021 intimating the approval of the acquisition of a 10.4% stake in GPL.

    The acquisition is in line with company's strategy of east coast to west coast parity and will provide an access to growth from new hinterland markets as it has coverage in resource-rich and industrial belt in eastern, central & southern India.

The consideration of the deal is Rs 6.5 bn, and the transaction is expected to be completed within a month.

The acquisition is subject to approvals under applicable laws, including approval of the Competition Commission of India.

Gangavaram Port is engaged in the business of handling various types of dry bulk and break bulk cargo.

Canara Bank share price will also be in focus today.

Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has picked up 1.59% stake in public sector bank Canara Bank.

According to a shareholding statement issued on 24 August, Jhunjhunwala picked up 2,88,50,000 shares or 1.59% in the lender.

Canara Bank is the third company in which Rakesh Jhunjhunwala acquired a stake during April to June 2021 quarter. He bought stakes in Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Indiabulls Housing Finance during the June 2021 quarter.

The PSU bank earlier in the day said it has approved the allotment of over 167.3 m shares in the Rs 25 bn qualified institutions placement (QIP) that closed a day earlier.

The QIP opened on 17 August and closed on 23 August 2021.

Seven investors were allotted more than 5% of the equity offered in the QIP issue.

LIC subscribed to 15.91%, BNP Paribas Arbitrage 12.55%, Societe Generale 7.97%, Indian Bank and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance - 6.37% each.

NIIF Looks to Invest in L&T's Hyderabad Metro

National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) is in advanced negotiations with Larsen and Toubro (L&T) to invest up to Rs 40 bn in Hyderabad Metro, as the conglomerate looks to focus on its core engineering activities and deleverage the balance sheet, said people aware of the matter.

The loss-making venture, L&T's single-biggest investment in a project, has been suffering on account of cost and time overruns, and loss of traffic, made worse by lockdowns during the Covid pandemic.

The company has also been in talks with the Telangana government and lead banker SBI to financially stabilise the asset.

Proceeds from the investment expected via a convertible instrument will help pare the project's Rs 135 bn debt and refinance it by extending loan tenors.

One of the sources mentioned above said NIIF's sponsors, sovereign wealth and pension funds, may also co-invest although there is no firm commitment on that as yet.

In parallel, the company has also sought a soft loan of up to Rs 50 bn from Telangana, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Dip Kishore Sen, whole-time director and senior executive vice president at L&T said,

  • The project needs immediate cash support from the government of Telangana to sustain operations.

    We have asked the government for a long-term soft loan which will be used only for reducing the debt size.

While it had turned down L&T's calls for financial assistance earlier, the state government is said to be considering this proposal and has hinted that it may help the company raise the money from other financial institutions.

Bharti Airtel Gets a Three-Week Reprieve in AGR Case

The Supreme Court has asked the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to not invoke any bank guarantees of Bharti Airtel for the next three weeks.

The direction comes after the DoT sent a letter to Bharti Airtel on 17 August asking it to clear Videocon Telecommunications' dues from the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) case as per the court's directions within a week.

The letter also added that a failure will result in the DoT invoking the bank guarantees submitted by Bharti Airtel.

The issue is a fallout of the Supreme Court's October 2019 ruling that non-core revenue must be included while calculating statutory levies. In September last year, the apex court had given telecom operators ten years to pay their AGR dues.

Bharti Airtel had struck a spectrum-trading agreement with Videocon in March 2016. And it bought the entire spectrum of Videocon Telecommunications. And so, the DoT moved to recover Videocon's dues from Bharti Airtel.

Bharti Airtel filed an application before the top court questioning the government's demand. The bank guarantees, the company said, were submitted for securing license fees and the other statutory dues.

It argued on Monday that as per the Supreme Court's judgment of September 2020, it's the seller's responsibility to clear the liabilities which were known on the date of the agreement.

In this case, AGR dues were known liabilities and therefore should be cleared by Videocon.

The application was heard by the top court bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah. The bench observed that it was not going into the merits of the case and asked the government to not invoke any of the bank guarantees for three weeks.

How this pans out remains to be seen. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more updates from this space.

To know what's moving the Indian stock markets today, check out the most recent share market updates here.

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