Airtel has informed that it will not be going ahead with the corporate restructuring plan it had announced in April 2021.
What was the restructuring plan?
- Airtel categorises it’s business under four verticals – India, International, Digital and Infrastructure. The 1st two consist of it’s telecom operations.
- As per the restructuring plan, it wanted to move telecom business in a separate unit retaining digital and infra in the listed parent unit.
- The move was to resolve the long contented confusion around definition of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) and clearly demarcate the telecom and non-telecom revenues. Licence Fee and Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC) are payable to government on the telecom AGR only. However, in the absence of clear demarcation of revenues there were long pending disputes related to calculation of AGR.
So why the Company doesn’t want to pursue this now?
- Government reforms in September 2021 has removed uncertainty on AGR calculation.
- Accordingly, the Company doesn’t see any reason to pursue the restructuring plan anymore.
It seems like a good decision for now as lots is changing in the Indian telecom sector. The sector is just coming out of a Jio led bloodbath with Airtel’s prospects looking brighter.
Without a strong immediate business rationale for restructuring anymore, it makes sense to drop it for now and put undivided focus on strengthening the core operations.