Vodafone Idea shares crash over 24% as Kumar Mangalam Birla steps down

In comparison, shares of its competitor Bharti Airtel rose 6.93 per cent on the BSE and 6.89 per cent on NSE to Rs 614.00 apiece in the morning trade. Oil-to-telecom behemoth Reliance Industries (RIL) rose 0.91 per cent to Rs 2122.65 on BSE and 0.92 per cent to Rs 2,123.20 on NSE.

At 12:02 pm, Vi stock was trading at Rs 5.31 on the BSE, down Rs 0.72 (11.94 per cent), while on NSE it was at Rs 5.35, down Rs 0.65 (10.83 per cent). Over 30.10 crore shares were traded on the BSE so far while over 142.17 crore shares exchanged hands on NSE, data from the respective stock exchanges showed.

“The Board of Directors of Vodafone Idea Limited, at its meeting held today, have accepted the request of Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla to step down as Non-Executive Director and Non-Executive Chairman of the Board with effect from close of business hours on 4th August, 2021,” the company informed in a filing to the stock exchanges after the market hours on Wednesday.

It further informed that the board unanimously elected Himanshu Kapania, currently a non-executive director on the board. Kapania is a nominee of the Aditya Birla group on the Vi (formerly known as Vodafone Idea) board.

Birla’s resignation comes just days after it was reported that in June he had written to the government offering to “hand over” his 27 per cent stake in the company to any public sector, government, or domestic financial entity or to any other firm that the government may think fit, in order to keep the struggling telco going.

Vi owed nearly Rs 60,000 crore to the DoT as AGR, Rs 96,270 crore in deferred spectrum obligations and another Rs 23,000 crore to banks and financial institutions.