Date:06/04/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/04/06/stories/2005040601810400.htm

Back Bharti ties up with BSE for live quotes — Plans Rs 4,000-cr capex to be met mostly through internal accruals

Our Bureau

Mr Akhil Gupta (left), Joint Managing Director, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, and Mr Rajnikant Patel, Executive Director & CEO, BSE, launching the Stock & Portfolio tracker in Mumbai on Tuesday. -- Paul Noronha

Mumbai , April 5

BHARTI Tele-Ventures on Tuesday announced the launch of the country's first stock and portfolio tracker on the mobile in association with the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The service named Airtel Portfolio Manager is made available nationally to both Airtel (Bharti's brand) post-paid and pre-paid customers using GPRS/EDGE phones.

By using this service, the customers would be able to view live quotes of chosen stocks and analyse the status of their portfolio through Airtel Live. The service can be accessed even while roaming all over India and in 20 different countries where Airtel has GPRS roaming agreements.

The service is priced at a fixed rate of Rs 150 per month.

The capital expenditure for the current fiscal will be between $850 and $900 million, or in the region of Rs 4,000 crore.

Two-thirds of this will be spent on the company's mobile telephony business and one-third on the company's non-mobile businesses, said Joint Managing Director of the company Mr Akhil Gupta.

This would be a little higher than its capex for the year currently ended; as of December 31, 2004, the company incurred Rs 3,300 crore in capital expenditure during that fiscal.

With the company already present in all the telecom circles in the country, the funds for the current year would largely be spent on increasing its network reach to more cities, towns and villages in the country.

The capital expenditure requirements will be largely met through internal accruals and, if required through debt, either domestic or overseas, said Mr Gupta.

However, refinance of earlier debt would continue to happen, with the company constantly evaluating the best options available.

The company's Board meeting scheduled for April 27 or April 28 will consider the conversion of domestic shares into American Depository Receipts. The company had earlier said that it planned to convert up to 200 million shares or 11 per cent of its equity to ADRs. Private equity firm Warburg Pincus would also be free to convert its shares, which currently amount to a 5.8 per cent equity stake in Bharti.