MUMBAI: Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom) on Friday said it received approval from its overseas bondholders to lower its debt burden. The move comes days ahead of the August 27 deadline to proceed for insolvency.
In a disclosure to bourses, the ailing telecom operator said that over 83 per cent of the bondholders have approved the plan. It may be noted that last year, RCom defaulted on a $300-million bond, and Friday’s move was a crucial vote as it was a precondition for the firm to restructure the domestic debt.
Earlier this month, RCom reinstated bank guarantees worth Rs 774 crore with the Department of Telecommunications, ahead of the timeline set by the telecom tribunal. It also said its Rs 25,000 crore asset sale plans were on track.
It may be noted that in December 2017, RCom had signed a pact with Reliance Jio for sale of wireless spectrum, tower, fibre and related assets. The Anil Ambani-led company was to use the sale proceeds to reduce debt.
The deal included 122.4 MHz of 4G spectrum in the 800/900/1800/2100 MHz bands, over 43,000 telecom towers, 178,000 km of fibre and 248 media convergence nodes.
On Thursday, RCom completed the sale of its media transmission nodes and related infrastructure assets with an aggregated worth of Rs 2,000 crore to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. “Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom) today (Friday) announced the completion of the sale of its MCNs and related infrastructure assets, worth Rs 2,000 crore, to Reliance Jio Infocomm,” RCom said in a statement, adding that 248 MCNs covering about 5 million sq ft area used for hosting the telecom infrastructure were transferred to Reliance Jio.