RCom gallops to 52-week high on high volume

Reliance Communications jumped 10.92% to Rs 123.45 at 15:19 IST on BSE, with the stock extending two-day gain on follow-up buying. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 27.66 points, or 0.14%, to 19,298.21. The Reliance Communications (RCom) stock surged on high volume. On BSE, 1.09 crore shares were traded in the counter as against an average daily volume of 60.74 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 124.95 so far during the day, which is also its 52-week high. The stock hit a low of Rs 111.15 so far during the day. The stock had hit a record low of Rs 46.60 on 30 August 2012. The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 17 June 2013, falling 2.02% compared with the Sensex's 4.73% fall. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, surging 67.12% as against Sensex's 0.52% fall. The large-cap telecom company has an equity capital of Rs 1032.01 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5. Shares of Reliance Communications (RCom) have gained 17.77% in three trading days from the recent low of Rs 105.50 on 13 June 2013, with bulk of the gains coming from today's session. Meanwhile, telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday, 17 June 2013 said it has reduced ceilings for national roaming calls and SMS and instituted a new regime for providing flexibility to telecom service providers to customise tariffs for national roamers through special tariff vouchers (STVs) and combo vouchers. TRAI has also mandated two types of free national roaming plans to be provided by all telecom service providers. These changes will come into effect from 1 July 2013. As per the latest (TRAI) mandate, outgoing local call charges, while on roaming, will be capped at Re 1 per minute from Rs 1.40 earlier, while outgoing STD charges, while on national roaming, have been capped to Rs 1.50 from Rs 2.40 per minute earlier. The ceiling tariffs for incoming calls while on national roaming have been reduced from Rs 1.75 per minute to 75 paise per minute, TRAI said. Outgoing local SMS-es will cost Rs 1, while outgoing STD SMS will cost Rs 1.50. Incoming SMS will remain free of charge. The changes will be effective from 1 July 2013. India is divided into 22 telecom zones. Currently, subscribers pay an additional fee for making and receiving calls when they are outside their home zone. On 7 June 2013, Reliance Jio Infocomm, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries and RCom announced the signing of a definitive agreement for sharing the latter's nationwide telecom towers infrastructure. Reports late May 2013 indicated that RCom has raised basic rates for both GSM and CDMA pre-paid mobile-to-mobile calls by 33% to 2 paise per second from 1.5 paise per second. RCom on 10 May 2013 made full repayment of a syndicated ECB loan facility of $500 million (over Rs 2700) on the due date. The loan was taken in 2007 from a group of international bank, RCom said in a statement. On 22 April 2013, RCom announced that Samena Capital in a proposed consortium with certain other global PE funds is at an advanced stage of the process of due diligence and completion of definitive documents in relation to the acquisition of the company's global communications services business unit -- Reliance Globalcom. The intended time line for completion of the transaction is end May 2013. At this point, there can be no certainty that this will lead to a transaction, RCom said. A further announcement will be made in due course, if and when appropriate, the company added. RCom also said that it has discontinued discussions with Batelco Group for selling its sake in Reliance Globalcom. RCom had earlier said in March 2013 that it was in discussions with Batelco Group with respect to Reliance Globalcom. RCom's consolidated net profit declined 8.73% to Rs 303 crore on 2.39% growth in total income from operations to Rs 5130 crore in Q4 March 2013 over Q4 March 2012. RCom has established a pan-India, high-capacity, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network, to offer services spanning the entire infocomm value chain.