Nokia Solutions Offloads Nearly 1% Stake In Vodafone Idea For Rs 786 Crore

Nokia Solutions and Networks India Pvt. on Friday divested about 1% equity stake in Vodafone Idea Ltd., while Goldman Sachs picked up a 0.55% holding in telecom firm.

The network solutions provider's offloaded the stake in the debt-laden Aditya Birla Group company for about Rs 786 crore through an open market transaction.

According to NSE’s bulk deal data, Nokia Solutions and Networks India sold 102.70 crore shares, or a 0.95% stake in Vodafone Idea.

The shares, which were sold for an average price of Rs 7.65 apiece, lead to an aggregate value of Rs 785.67 crore.

Meanwhile, global investment firm Goldman Sachs picked up 59.86 crore shares, or 0.55% holding, in Vodafone Idea.

The shares were acquired at the same price. This took the deal value to Rs 457.96 crore.

However, details of the other buyers could not be ascertained.

On Friday, shares of Vodafone Idea fell 5.93% to close at Rs 7.46 per piece on the NSE.

Last year, in June, the telco had announced that it will allocate shares worth Rs 2,458 crore to vendors Nokia India and Ericsson India to clear their partial dues.

Pursuant to issuance of shares, the equity stake of Nokia and Ericsson in the company will be 1.5% and 0.9%, respectively.

(With PTI inputs)