Dial Vi for revival

Vodafone-Idea’s ₹18,000 crore follow-on public offer, the biggest such seen by the Indian stock market, had a good last day. The issue had got subscribed over 6 times towards the end of bidding on Monday. Non-institutional and qualified institutional investors showed high interest, though retail participation was slow. This dose of capital will give the company a renewed lease of life amid struggles that seemed to put its survival in question, raising worries of India’s telecom market ending up under a duopoly. That said, Vodafone-Idea is not out of the woods just yet. The money is expected to be used on network infrastructure for both 4G and 5G telephony, where it needs to play catch-up with rivals Airtel and Reliance Jio. Having lagged in the tech race, Vodafone-Idea has been losing customers. It must staunch these losses quickly, even as it shows how it intends to acquire a competitive edge. This isn’t just a matter of getting its technology up-to-date and financial ratios back in shape, but also spotting new opportunities. Like monopoly markets, twoplayer sectors tend to have deficiencies in customer satisfaction, which explains why there’s usually space for a sharp No. 3.

A Brazilian woman’s uncle was dead,

But for the loan, she went ahead.

She wheeled the corpse to the bank.

When his signature drew a blank,

Officials called the cops instead.