Bharti Airtel Prepays ₹5,985 Crore in High-Cost Spectrum Liabilities to Government

Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary Bharti Hexacom have prepaid another ₹5,985 crore of high-cost spectrum dues to the government, the telecom major announced on Wednesday.

Also, Airtel's subsidiary Network i2i has voluntarily redeemed perpetual debt securities of $1 billion.

"Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary Bharti Hexacom have prepaid a further ₹5,985 crore to the Department of Telecom, thus settling the 8.65% high-cost interest obligations of the 2024 auctions in full," the Sunil Mittal-led telco said.

Network i2i Ltd also invoked a voluntary call option to retire $1 billion perpetual notes.

Reaffirming its commitment to financial prudence and operational cost-effectiveness, Airtel reiterated that these prepayments are in line with the company's strategy of lowering its debt burden and minimizing interest expenses.

In this latest action, Airtel has prepaid ₹25,981 crore of high-cost spectrum dues for the current fiscal year (FY 2025), thus increasing its total cumulative prepayments to ₹66,665 crore.

The weighted average rate of interest on these prepaid liabilities was around 9.74%. The company had earlier prepaid liabilities bearing interest rates of 10%, 9.75%, and 9.3%, prepaying them about seven years before their residual maturity dates.

By making these advance payments, Airtel has successfully prepaid ₹1,16,405 crore worth of scheduled instalments that were otherwise due for repayment over their respective tenures.

Subsequently, the company has managed to bring the cost of debt on its outstanding ₹52,000 crore of spectrum obligations (excluding AGR obligations) to an average of 7.22%. These outstanding spectrum obligations have a long-term repayment tenure till FY 2042.

In addition, Network i2i Limited has prepaid $1 billion of perpetual notes that were originally issued in FY 2020.

"These perpetual notes had no maturity date and bore an interest rate of 5.65%. Following this redemption, Airtel currently has around $479 million of perpetual notes outstanding, issued in FY 2021. These are callable in FY 2026," the company further added.