Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary Bharti Hexacom Limited have prepaid additional Rs 59.85 billion to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) thereby fully prepaying the high-cost interest liabilities of 8.65 per cent pertaining to the 2024 auctions. Airtel’s subsidiary Network i2i Limited has also voluntarily called and redeemed $1 billion in Perpetual Notes.
Airtel has now prepaid Rs 259.81 billion of high-cost spectrum liabilities for the current 2025 fiscal year (FY) and has cumulatively prepaid spectrum liabilities of Rs 666.65 billion as on date. The average interest rate on the cumulative liabilities prepaid was approximately 9.74 per cent. Airtel had earlier fully prepaid liabilities that had interest rates of 10 per cent, 9.75 per cent and 9.3 per cent. These prepayments have been made about seven years ahead of their average residual maturities.
Further, the prepayments have resulted in Airtel clearing Rs 1.16 trillion of scheduled instalments that would have otherwise been payable on their respective dates over the original tenure of the liabilities.
Consequent to these payments, Airtel has also lowered its cost of debt on spectrum liabilities to an average of approximately 7.22 per cent on the residual Rs 520 billion of spectrum liabilities [excluding adjusted gross revenue (AGR) liabilities]. The residual spectrum liabilities carry a long repayment profile payable in annual instalments until FY 2042.
Additionally, Airtel’s subsidiary Network i2i Limited has voluntarily exercised a call option and redeemed $1 billion in ‘$ Perpetual Notes’ issued in financial year (FY) 2020. Perpetual notes otherwise had no contracted maturity and carried an interest rate of 5.65 per cent. Post the redemption of $1 billion in perpetual notes, Airtel will have approximately $479 million of perpetual notes outstanding, which were issued during FY 2021. These notes can be called in FY 2026.
