Indian operator Reliance Communications (RCom) has announced an agreement with lenders to restructure its debt and exit protection from creditors, without any loan write-offs. Upon completion of all the proposed transactions, RCom's debt is expected to drop to INR 60 billion, which represents a reduction of over 85 percent.
RCom said it's working with lenders and SBI Capital Markets, the advisors appointed by the lenders, to run a competitive process to monetize its assets comprising 122.4 MHz of 4G spectrum in the 800/900/1800/2100 MHz bands; over 43,000 towers; 178,000 RKM of fibre across India; 248 media convergence nodes covering 5 million square feet, used for hosting telecom infrastructure; as well as real estate located in New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Jigni and Tirupati.
The monetization process is being carried out under the oversight of an independent Bid Evaluation Committee, comprised of experts from banking, telecom and law. Lenders have received the final binding bids and all transactions are expected to be closed in a phased manner between January and March 2018.
According to RCom, the monetisation of these assets alone will lead to reduction of its debt by INR 250 billion, through prepayment of loans, transfer of DoT’s deferred spectrum payment liabilities etc.
RCom also reported it will receive an equity infusion from global strategic partners for further debt reduction, consequent upon a stake sale process already underway, and being conducted by Credit Suisse. The company is also engaging with its unsecured creditors, and expects to arrive at a resolution over the next few weeks.
