Market player Rakesh Jhunjhunwalla has bought 75 lakh shares of ailing airline SpiceJet at an average price of ₹17.85 a share, in a deal valued at about ₹13.40 crore.

This announcement saw the airline’s shares jump 18.36 per cent on Friday to close at ₹18.24 on the BSE.

In May, Rekha Jhunjhunwalla had bought 25 lakh shares at an average price of ₹38.94 a share, in a deal valued at about ₹9.7 crore.

Industry sources say that institutional investors must have sold the shares. That an astute market player like Jhunjhunwalla has bought the shares only shows that the airline’s owner — Kalanidhi Maran of the Sun TV group — is close to selling a stake in the company, they added..

SpiceJet is on the look out for an investor to bail it out. Recently, it informed the stock exchanges that a few parties had approached it and shown interest in “making investments into SpiceJet as the company has been exploring various options for raising fresh capital.”

The discussions with the prospective investors were at a preliminary stage, the airline said.

In the quarter ended September 30, the airline posted a loss of ₹310 crore on an income from operations of ₹1,436 crore. In 2013-14, it recorded a loss of ₹1,003 crore on an income from operations of ₹6,304 crore.

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