Interview: FPO funds to take care of Vodafone Idea’s capex needs for 3 years, says CEO Akshaya Moondra

The Vodafone Idea (Vi) follow-on public offer (FPO) has received strong support from anchor investors, signalling their confidence in the long-term business plans of the company, chief executive Akshaya Moondra told Himanshi Lohchab and Romit Guha. The balance sheet doesn’t pose any worries, with bank debt at less than Rs 4,500 crore, he said, adding that the FPO will raise enough money to meet capital expenditure needs for three years, with 4G expansion the priority. This will help narrow and ultimately stem subscriber losses and lead to a financial turnaround. Edited excerpts:

What do you make of the anchor investor interest?

The anchor book has been strong. We have GQG, Fidelity Management Research, UBS, RWC as the main foreign investors. In India, we have HDFC Mutual Fund, Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund and Quant Mutual Fund. We also have life insurance companies like SBI General and ICICI Pru Life. These are long-only investors. There are some which show interest from the HNI segment. And most importantly, we’ve kept the hedge fund book to less than 5%, which kind of shows the strength of the offering and the quality of the investors.