RCom invites tender for $955 million FCCB buyback

Reliance Communications, an Anil Ambani group company, has invited tenders to buyback its outstanding $955 million foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) at a discounted price. The company intends to call tenders for the repurchase.

“The invitation to tender will commence on April 15 and will expire on April 17, 2009,” RCom informed the BSE today.

In 2007, the telecom service provider had issued around $1 billion FCCBs, while it had repurchased around $45 million FCCBs. The bonds were due in 2012.
The buyback of FCCBs will result in gains to the company to the extent of the discount on the repurchase of FCCBs, and will help in reducing the debt on the balance sheet of the company, it added.

In December 2008, RBI had permitted companies to buyback FCCBs if they are trading at a discount of 25 % of its book value.

On Tuesday, RCom had announced that it repurchased FCCBs worth Rs 25.26 crore ($5 million) at a discount. 

The Anil Ambani group company has repurchased 50 zero coupon FCCBs of $100,000 each (totaling $5 million) and expects to extinguish them on April 15, 2009, it informed the BSE.

However, the details of the discount were not provided.