Bharti Airtel prepays an additional Rs. 5,985 crores of high-cost spectrum liabilities
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Bharti Airtel Ltd. (“Airtel”) and its subsidiary Bharti Hexacom Ltd. have prepaid an additional Rs. 5,985 crores to the Department of Telecom, thereby fully prepaying the high-cost interest liabilities of 8.65% of the 2024 auctions. Airtel’s subsidiary Network i2i Ltd. has also voluntarily called and redeemed $1 billion in Perpetual Notes.
Airtel has now prepaid Rs. 25,981 crores of high-cost spectrum liabilities for the current 2025 fiscal year and has cumulatively prepaid spectrum liabilities of Rs 66,665 crores as on date. The average interest rate on the cumulative liabilities prepaid was approximately 9.74%. Airtel had earlier fully prepaid liabilities that had interest rates of 10%, 9.75%, and 9.3%. These prepayments have been made about 7 years ahead of their average residual maturities.
Consequent to these payments, Airtel has also lowered its cost of debt on spectrum liabilities to an average of approximately 7.22% on the residual Rs. 52,000 crores of spectrum liabilities (excluding AGR liabilities). The residual spectrum liabilities carry a long repayment profile payable in annual instalments until FY 2042.
