Bharti Airtel Ltd shares soared as much as 7% in intra-day trade on Monday, i.e. November 18, on news that the company has withdrawn its bid to purchase assets of Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom).
At 11:12 am, shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd were trading at Rs 414, up 5.3%, after hitting the day’s high of Rs 420.55. Notably, the stock has jumped nearly 34% in the past one year.
Bharti Airtel withdrew its bid, saying that the decision by RCom’s committee of creditors (CoC) to extend the bid submission deadline on the request of Reliance Jio was “extremely unfair” and “biased”.
Bharti Airtel director (finance) Harjeet Kohli, in a letter to resolution professional Anish Niranjan Nanavaty, said that his company’s request to extend the deadline was earlier turned down by RCom’s CoC, but surprisingly, the dates were extended later to accommodate submission by a bidder (an indirect reference to Reliance Jio).
According to a PTI report, Bharti Airtel, Bharti Infratel and private equity firm Varde Partners have already submitted their bids for assets of Reliance Communications, while Reliance Jio has sought extension of the asset sale deal deadline by another 10 days. Airtel has placed conditional bid to buy spectrum of RCom, while Bharti Infratel has submitted bids for mobile towers.
The CoC has reportedly extended the deadline by 10 days and has decided to open bids now on 25 November.
“We find this conduct, inequitable, questionable and against the spirit of what should be a highly transparent process. To say the least, it is extremely unfair and rather biased...we hereby formally withdraw our resolution plans while reserving all rights, including the right to submit our resolution plan afresh within the new deadline communicated now,” Kohli.
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