Mumbai, June 16: The proposed bonus issue from Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) saw its scrip register a smart gain on Friday. The VSNL share on Friday closed at Rs 1,380.25 after touching an intra-day high of Rs 1,404.55 at BSE. The intra-day low of the share was Rs 1,325. The state-run company is meeting on June 27 to consider a bonus issue. VSNL has also sent a notice to the Bombay stock exchange.The VSNL board will also take up the audited financial results for the fiscal-ended March 31, 2000. The board will also review the response to the `moonsoon package' announced by the company recently. VSNL, recently, offered a 50 per cent reduction in Internet rate under the Monsoon Package.
Marketmen say that the monsoon package has been attracting huge demand from customers for VSNet. In fact, the share had taken a beating when the company announced its unaudited annual financial results on April 29. This was mainly due to the dismal performance.
Marketmen say the bonus issue could be in the range of 1:1. When contacted, VSNL director (finance) RSP Sinha said: "The board is yet to take a final decision on the ratio of the bonus issue. Since the board is meeting on June 27, I do not want to comment on market speculations," Sinha said.
According to company officials, VSNL is looking at a bottomline revenue of Rs 1,700 crore to Rs 1,800 crore during the current fiscal, while the growth in total revenue could be more than 20 per cent. And, this could be one of the reasons for the renewed attraction at the VSNL counters.
The company's total revenue and net profit during 1999-00 based on the unaudited figures were Rs 7,272 crore and Rs 799 crore respectively. The company's 40 per cent slip in net profit during the period was due to the writting off VSNL's earlier investments in ICO Global Communications.
VSNL is aiming at an average income of Rs 70 crore from its strategic alliance with Indiainfo.com during the fiscal 2000-01. The income from indiainfo.com could go up, if the company announces any dividend as well.
This apart, VSNL is expecting an additional revenue from the international traffic. Over the past few months, the average increase in outgoing calls is 17 per cent, while the increase in incoming call is about 22 per cent.
During the financial year-ended March 31, 2000, VSNL had carried traffic of 2,239.32 million minutes of telephone traffic as against 1,935.04 million minutes in the previous year, representing a growth of 15.72 per cent. The traffic during the last quarter ended March 31, 2000 was 614.96 million minutes (519.56 million minutes), a growth of 18.36 per cent.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.