Bharti Airtel Shares Trade 3.5% Away From Its 52-Week High: What's Driving The Gains?

Shares of Bharti Airtel in intra-day trade on March 29, 2022 extended their winning run for the fourth straight session and zoomed by over 4% to day's high price of Rs. 763 per share on the NSE. Considering the last traded price of Rs. 754.1, the stock trades just 3.5% away from its 52-week high price of Rs. 781.8. The company's m-cap rose to Rs. 4.22 lakh crore. The scrip in 1-year timeframe has zoomed by over 47%, while its 1-month return is at close to 10%.

The sharp gains in the stock price of the country's leading telecom service provider are on the back of the former's acquisition of Vodafone group's stake in Indus Towers. The company in an exchange filing said, "the Company, along with its wholly-owned subsidiary, Nettle Infrastructure InvestmentsLimited, has acquired 127,105,179 equity shares or approximately 4.7% of Indus Towers Limited @ Rs 187.88 per share from Euro Pacific Securities Ltd., an affiliate of
Vodafone Group Plc. The financial consideration of the deal amounts to Rs. 2388 crore.

Bharti Airtel last month inked an agreement to acquire Vodafone's stake in Indus Towers on "the principal condition that the amount paid shall be inducted by Vodafone as fresh equity in Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) and simultaneously remitted to Indus Towers to clear VIL's outstanding dues".

Further Bharti Airtel on March 25 hosted an analyst meet wherein it outlined the opportunities and company's strategy. The management continued to be optimistic about sustaining robust revenue growth in mobile business and estimates acceleration in revenue growth in non-mobile business going forward. The company also is considering monetisation of its Payments bank as well as data centre business for unlocking new business possibilities.

Post the analyst meet presentation by the company, brokerages have turned bullish on the stock and recommended a buy rating, with Motilal Oswal giving a target price of Rs. 910.

At the close of the trading session, the stock of Bharti Airtel settled higher by 2.99% at Rs. 754.95 per share on the NSE.