Airtel prepays an additional Rs. 5,985 crores of high-cost spectrum liabilities

Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary, Bharti Hexacom, have prepaid Rs 5,985 crores to the Department of Telecom, fully settling the high-cost 8.65% interest liabilities from the 2024 auctions. Additionally, Airtel’s subsidiary, Network i2i Ltd., has voluntarily redeemed $1 billion in Perpetual Notes, the telecom giant said in a statement.

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.

“The prepayments have resulted in Airtel clearing Rs 116,405 crores of scheduled instalments that would have otherwise been payable on their respective dates over the original tenure of the liabilities.”

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.

Additionally, Airtel’s subsidiary Network i2i Limited 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%. Post the redemption of $1 billion in perpetual notes, Airtel will have approximately $479 million of perpetual notes outstanding, which were issued during FY 2021. These notes can be called in FY 2026.