Airtel shares rise after Mittal outlines plans for big digital play

Kolkata: Shares of Bharti Airtel hit a near 3% intra-day high Monday after Chairman Sunil Mittal outlined plans for a big digital play in parallel to its telecom business, and future monetization possibilities.

Analysts and industry executives said the move could help Bharti Airtel attract top dollars from global technology companies and private equity firms, who may be more comfortable injecting capital into the growing digital operations since its revenue, unlike the connectivity business, would be ring-fenced from all statutory payouts linked to adjusted gross revenue (AGR) such as licence fees and spectrum usage charges (SUC).