Indian telecom service provider, Bharti Airtel announced the prepayment of INR 88.15 billion (USD 11.58 billion) to the Department of Telecom (DoT), Government of India, of deferred liabilities related to spectrum acquired in the auction of the year 2015.
In a release, India’s second-largest telecom operator said that pre-payment is for the instalments that were due in FY2027 and FY2028.
For the past four months, Bharti Airtel has settled INR 243.34 billion of its deferred spectrum liabilities much ahead of scheduled maturities. These liabilities carried an interest rate of 10% and have been paid off through a combination of strong free cash generated by the business, equity proceeds, and significantly lower cost debt of a similar tenor.
The Sunil Mittal-led telco said that it continues to focus on financial flexibility via its capital structure including optimising the cost of financing and capitalising on all opportunities of significant interest saves like this prepayment.
Bharti Airtel is a global communications solutions provider with over 480 million customers in 16 countries across South Asia and Africa.
