The country’s second largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel (Airtel) on Friday said it had paid ₹8,815 crore to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) towards part prepayment of deferred liabilities pertaining to spectrum acquired in auction of 2015.
“The prepayment is for instalments due in fiscal year (FY) 2027 and FY 2028,” the company said in a statement.
Over the last four months, Airtel had cleared ₹24,334 crore of its deferred spectrum liabilities much ahead of scheduled maturities. These liabilities carried an interest rate of 10 per cent and have been paid off through a combination of strong free cash generated by business, equity proceeds and significantly lower cost debt of similar tenor.
“Airtel continues to focus on financial flexibility via its capital structure, including optimising cost of financing and capitalising on all opportunities of significant interest saves like this prepayment,” the company added.
In December, Airtel had done a prepayment of ₹15,519 crore to clear entire deferred liability for spectrum acquired in 2014 auctions.
Its total outstanding of deferred spectrum liability post payments is now at around ₹67,000 crore.
Published on
March 25, 2022
