Top headlines: Jet Airways creditors take haircut; Sebi reins in promoters

Business Standard brings you the top headlines on Thursday

Top headlines at this hour: India's telecom companies are getting subscribers but revenue is still far away from peak. Creditors to bust Jet Airways will take 95% haircut on Rs 7,800 cr .

Telcos sustain growth but FY21 revenue still away from FY16 peak

India’s mobile operators are back on the growth path and their combined net sales were up 11.9 per cent in FY21. With this, the industry’s total revenues are up 33.6 per cent from FY18.

But, the telecom industry is yet to fully recover from the disruption caused by the entry of Reliance Jio in 2016. Its combined revenues last fiscal were still 16.5 per cent lower than its peak revenues in FY16. Telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, and BSNL reported a combined net sales of Rs 1.87 trillion in FY21 against peak revenues of Rs 2.24 trillion during the financial year ended March 2016. Read more

Asset monetisation drive of BSNL, MTNL hits roadblock again

The asset monetisation drive of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) has hit a bump, yet again, as it faces land use change hurdles in some states.

Recently, during the review of the tel­e­com sector by the Prime Minister, the is­sue of selling the assets of BSNL and MTNL was also flagged off by the department. The Union government is facing hurdles as far as getting the land use changed for the assets of BSNL and MTNL. Read more

Battle between satellite service providers and telcos for spectrum

A fierce war has broken out over this lucrative high-speed broadband pie between global satellite service providers and domestic telecom majors (telcos).

Amazon’s Kuiper is putting up thousands of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites around 2,000 km above Earth across the world. These LEOs will also cover India, offering high-speed broadband that could match speeds of 5G. Taking them on are Reliance Jio and Vodafone-Idea, which want to leverage 5G to offer high-speed fixed wireless broadband to customers and enhance revenues. Read more

Financial creditors to take 95% haircut on Jet Airways dues

Financial creditors to Jet Airways will be taking around 95 per cent haircut as the successful bidder Jalan-Kalrock consortium have proposed to pay Rs 385 crore against the total claim of Rs 7,807.74 crore.

Out of that Rs 185 crore will be paid upfront within 180 days after start of operations of the company, whereas Rs 195 crore will be paid through issuance of zero coupon bonds, each of Rs 1,000 face value after two years. Read more

Promoters of over 500 listed firms lose monopoly over independent directors

Promoters of more than 500 companies will no longer be the sole judge on independent director appointments.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has said that appointments will need a special resolution. This means that the voting threshold in favour of the appointment will now be 75 per cent. It was earlier passed by ordinary resolution which needed a majority vote (above 50 per cent). Read more