New Delhi: SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar on Friday said while it is difficult to predict the impact of the Supreme Court order on telecom companies, the bank has well-defined policies to lend to sectors and individual companies.
"Right now it is very difficult to say what impact it will have and from where this money will be paid. but as far as bank lendings is concerned, whether it is telecom or any other sector we have industry exposure limits, individual company-wise exposure limits and the bank has under-writing policies. Any sector which we lend to we lend in this policy," Kumar said on a conference call on its Q2 results.
He was responding to a query that does this make lending to telecom sector cautious by the bank to the sector on issuing fresh loans.
The apex court verdict on Thursday ends the 14-year legal battle between mobile operators and the government on the definition of adjusted gross revenues used to calculate spectrum charges and licence fees. The Department of Telecommunications had sought more than Rs 92,000 crore in dues. The exact amount, however, may change based on what's finally included in the definition.
Shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd. fell as much as 4.9 per cent and Vodafone Idea Ltd tumbled as much as 13.3 per cent after the verdict. According to numbers filed with the court, Bharti Airtel will have to pay up Rs 21,682 crore and Vodafone Idea will have to pay Rs 28,309 crore. The burden comes when their debt has ballooned and profits fallen after Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. upended the nation's telecom market with rock-bottom tariffs, wiping out smaller rivals and forcing others to merge.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the telecom operators have to include non-core revenues to calculate the charges and based on this the Department of Telecom in a big blow to the telcos can raise demand from them amounting to Rs 92,000 crore.
