Airtel prepays additional ₹5,985 crore to DoT on spectrum liabilities

Bharti Airtel (Airtel) and its subsidiary Bharti Hexacom have prepaid additional ₹5,985 crore 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 has also voluntarily called and redeemed $1 billion in Perpetual Notes, the company said in a statement.

“Underscoring its commitment to financial prudence, operational efficiency, and its strong capital position, Airtel continues to prepay its high-cost spectrum liabilities, lowering its debt and cost of debt,” it said.

With this, Airtel has now prepaid ₹25,981 crore of high-cost spectrum liabilities for the current 2025 fiscal year and has cumulatively prepaid spectrum liabilities of ₹66,665 crore as on date, the company said.

The average interest rate on the cumulative liabilities prepaid was around 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, it noted adding that these prepayments have been made about seven years ahead of their average residual maturities.

The prepayments have resulted in Airtel clearing ₹1,16,405 crore of scheduled instalments that would have otherwise been payable on their respective dates over the original tenure of the liabilities.

Spectrum liabilities

Consequent to these payments, Airtel has also lowered its cost of debt on spectrum liabilities to an average of around 7.22 per cent on the residual₹52,000 crore of spectrum liabilities (excluding AGR liabilities). The residual spectrum liabilities carry a long repayment profile payable in annual instalments until FY 2042, it mentioned.

Additionally, Airtel’s subsidiary Network i2i has voluntarily exercised a call option and redeemed $1 billion in USD Perpetual Notes issued in 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 around $479 million of perpetual notes outstanding, which were issued during FY 2021. These notes can be called in FY 2026, the company added.