Bharti retires Rs 7k-cr debt with stake sale money

Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest telecom operators by subscriber base, on Monday, said it had repaid Rs 6,796 crore of debt from the proceeds of the five per cent stake sale to Qatar Foundation Endowment.

The debt reduction would result in improvement in the company’s capital structure and balance sheet leverage, Bharti said in a statement.

With this, Bharti’s total debt burden would come down to Rs 57,043 crore as the company had reported its total debt at Rs 63,839 crore till March 31. But it is likely the company might have reduced its debt further during the past quarter which would reflect in its quarterly results. In June, Bharti Airtel had issued 199,870,006 new equity shares at Rs 340 each, representing five per cent equity stake in the company, to Qatar Foundation Endowment for a total consideration of Rs 6,796 crore.

The company has recently raised $1.5 billion via issue of dollar bonds through its Netherlands-based subsidiary. It has announced plans for raising Rs 500 million through a second tranche of bonds, and has received bids worth four times the value on offer.

After the announcement, Bharti’s stock had touched a high at Rs 307.8, a rise of four per cent during the day, and was last traded at Rs 293.5 on BSE on Monday.

Indian telcos cut debt
Indian telecom companies have been selling assets to bring down huge debt. On Sunday, Reliance Communications (RCom) announced the demerger of its real estate assets into a separate company to unlock value.

Last week, RCom had said it has made full repayment of two loans amounting to Rs 1 billion (Rs 6,000 crore), during the June quarter. Further, RCom has made scheduled repayments of another $207 million foreign currency loan, on the respective due dates during the quarter ended June 30.