{"id":6623,"date":"2025-03-26T16:05:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T10:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/?p=6623"},"modified":"2025-03-26T16:05:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T10:35:27","slug":"bharti-airtel-prepays-%e2%82%b95985-crore-in-spectrum-dues-redeems-1-billion-in-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/bharti-airtel-prepays-%e2%82%b95985-crore-in-spectrum-dues-redeems-1-billion-in-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"Bharti Airtel Prepays \u20b95,985 Crore in Spectrum Dues, Redeems $1 Billion in Debt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Telecom giant Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary Bharti Hexacom have prepaid an additional \u20b95,985 crore of expensive spectrum debt to the Department of Telecom (DoT) and redeemed $1 billion of perpetual bonds, an exchange filing on March 26 stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this recent move, Airtel has now prepaid \u20b925,981 crore of spectrum liabilities for FY25 and a total amount of \u20b966,665 crore to date. The prepayment is part of the company\u2019s goal to deleverage and reduce financing costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Airtel stated in its filing: &#8220;Highlighting its emphasis on financial prudence, operating efficiency, and its strong capital position, Airtel continues to prepay its high-cost spectrum liabilities, lowering its debt and cost of borrowing.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Debt Reduction &amp; Cost Benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The average interest rate on the prepaid spectrum liabilities stood at 9.74%.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The \u20b95,985 crore prepayment was made 7 years ahead of the average residual maturity period.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Spectrum liabilities from the 2024 auctions, which carried an interest rate of 8.65%, have now been cleared well before their due date.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Airtel has successfully cleared \u20b91.16 lakh crore in scheduled payments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Following this prepayment, Airtel has reduced its cost of debt on spectrum obligations to 7.22%, with \u20b952,000 crore of outstanding dues (apart from AGR obligations). These remaining spectrum obligations have now acquired a long repayment tenure, extending up to FY42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Perpetual Bonds &amp; Future Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the repayment of $1 billion perpetual notes, Airtel now has only $479 million worth of perpetual bonds outstanding. These were raised in FY21 and are due in FY26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Airtel has been actively working towards lowering borrowing costs and prepays spectrum dues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>September 2024: Airtel prepaid \u20b98,465 crore to clear outstanding spectrum dues of 2016 auctions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>December 2024: The company paid \u20b93,626 crore to the DoT, settling its 2016 spectrum auction dues in entirety. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Airtel&#8217;s debt-reduction plan, which is on the aggressive side, should strengthen its financials and profitability in the next couple of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you have a news tip for Lakshmishree reporters? Please email us at&nbsp;<a>media@lakshmishree.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><sup><sub>Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneycontrol.com\/news\/business\/companies\/bharti-airtel-prepays-additional-spectrum-dues-worth-nearly-rs-6-000-crore-redeems-1-billion-in-debt-12976417.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Moneycontrol<\/a>.<\/sub><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Telecom giant Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary Bharti Hexacom have prepaid an additional \u20b95,985 crore of expensive spectrum debt to the Department of Telecom (DoT) and redeemed $1 billion of perpetual bonds, an exchange filing on March 26 stated. With this recent move, Airtel has now prepaid \u20b925,981 crore of spectrum liabilities for FY25 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[1103,1106],"class_list":["post-6623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indian-market","tag-bharti-airtel","tag-prepayment-of-debt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6625,"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6623\/revisions\/6625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakshmishree.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}