Bharti Airtel chief executive officer Manoj Kohli has sold his entire stake of 1.23 lakh (123,000) shares last week for over Rs 7.20 crore (Rs 72 million), a move that coincided with the announcement of new Interconnection Usage Charge regime which is bound to affect company's revenues.
"I have sold my current holding in Bharti Airtel for personal reasons. I continue to hold 1.80 lakh (180,000) options in the company, some of which have already vested and the balance will vest from time to time as per the vesting schedule," Kohli, Bharti Airtel's CEO and joint managing director, said in a statement.
According to company spokesperson, these options of 1.80 lakh would be converted into as many number of shares by the middle of next year.
The company separately said in its stock exchange filings that Kohli sold his entire current holding of 1.23 lakh shares for about Rs 7.21 crore (Rs 72.1 million) on March 6 and March 9 -- resulting in an average sale price of about Rs 586 a share.
Shares of Bharti Airtel on Thursday dipped by 6.4 per cent to close at Rs 550.30 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
On Friday, telecom regulator Trai had announced the revised IUC regime and slashed the termination charge by about 33 per cent to 20 paise a minute with effect from April 1, 2009, from 33 paise now.
Termination charge is a levy paid by an operator to another on whose network the call ends.
The GSM operators' lobby had opposed the move saying cut in termination charge would affect telcos' revenues.
It is evident from the movement of the scrip on the stock exchanges with Bharti Airtel's share prices plunging by 8.61 per cent since March 6 or 6.37 per cent since March 9 that cut in termination charge, as announced by Trai, affected the company's share prices.
Kohli also said in a statement that he continues to be the CEO and joint managing director of the company.
On March 6, Kohli offloaded 53,000 shares of the company valued at Rs 3.13 crore (Rs 31.3 million), while on March 9 Kohli sold 70,000 shares for Rs 4.07 crore (Rs 40.7 million), as per the stock exchange filing.
India Inc makes a case for single-digit lending rates
Concerned at the declining industrial growth, industry chambers on Thursday suggested that lending rates should be brought down to single-digit levels.
The slowdown in industrial growth underlines the need for ensuring that the measures announced in the economic stimulus packages are speedily implemented, Ficci said in statement.
"The chamber has been pointing out that interest rates at the retail level have not yet been fully adjusted. Unless the lending rates are brought down to single-digit levels, economic recovery will take a long time," said Ficci president Harsh Pati Singhania.
During January industrial output showed negative growth of 0.5 per cent, highlighting that stimulus packages have failed to perk up manufacturing as well as mining so far.
However, Singhania said that hopefully India should see some recovery from February 2009 onwards particularly in the context of improved demand seen in sectors like automobiles, consumer durables and cement.
Assocham says continuing contraction in industrial production in the last few months is indicative of the fact that India's growth momentum is in for serious trouble.
"The fall in India's industrial output of January shows that Indian Inc has fallen under the severe pressure of slowdown at least for some time," Assocham president Sajjan Jindal said.
Jindal said that now it is certain that India's GDP growth for the fiscal would be much lower against the revised estimates and the country should accordingly prepare for it.
However, the CII said the numbers show that the decline in industrial growth has not been as sharp as had earlier been expected.
"With the decline in IIP contained within one per cent in both December 2008 and January (2009), industry is likely to manage decent growth of three per cent during the year 2008-09," the CII said.
The CII said the January data show that while the performance of intermediate and basic goods has been disappointing, there has been an encouraging turnaround in the capital goods and consumer goods sectors.
