Birla At & T Mobilises $283m Ecb

Birla AT&T Communications, the cellular licensee for Gujarat, Goa and Maharashtra (except Mumbai), has mobilised a non-recourse external commercial borrowing (ECB) of $283 million (about Rs 1,000 crore) for eight-and- a-half years.

This loan will complete the financing of Birla AT&Ts $1.5 bn project in the licensed areas, said Birla AT&T Communications chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla. The loan was arranged by Bank of America NT&SA through its subsidiary BA Asia, and Toronto Dominion (South East Asia) Ltd. It is divided into a foreign currency portion and a rupee tranche.

The financing, with a term of eight-and-a-half years, is entirely non-recourse. Birla AT&T, a joint venture between the Aditya Birla group (51 per cent) and US telecommunications giant AT&T (49 per cent), was not required to furnish any corporate guarantee for it. About the telecom industry, Birla said: An interconnect regime mutually acceptable to the department of telecommunications and the private operators is inevitable. We look forward to the setting up of a balanced interconnect arrangement soon.

 

He said the decision of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India quashing the increase in fixed-to-cellular call tariff effected by DoT helped the company in raising the loan, as it vindicated its tariff projections.