Bharti Airtel prepays Rs8,815cr for spectrum acquired in 2015; stock jumps ~1%

25 Mar 2022 , 09:30 AM

Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s premier digital communications solutions provider, today said that it has paid Rs8,815 crore to the Department of Telecom (Government of India) towards part prepayment of deferred liabilities about spectrum acquired in the auction of the year 2015. The prepayment is for installments due in FY27 and FY28.

Over the last four months, Airtel has cleared Rs24,334 crore of its deferred spectrum liabilities much before their 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.

Airtel continues to focus on financial flexibility via its capital structure including optimizing the cost of financing and capitalizing on all opportunities of significant interest saves like this prepayment.

Bharti Airtel is currently trading at Rs711.55 up by Rs5.3 or 0.75% from its previous closing of Rs706.25 on the BSE. The scrip opened at Rs710.50 and has touched a high and low of Rs713.15 and Rs710.10 respectively.