Indian operator Reliance Communications said it "respectfully disagrees" with the downgrade of its credit ratings by Moody's and Fitch. In a statement the company noted that the downgrade applies only to its bonds. These were issued in an amount of USD 300 million in 2015 and are due in November 2020.
RCom reiterated that it's up to date with payments on the bonds and will continue to pay interest as scheduled. The company said the ratings agencies had also not taken into account how far along it was in transactions to acquire Aircel and sell towers, which are expected to reduce its debt by around USD 4 billion or 60 percent. It plans to devote these proceeds to debt repayments by the end of September.
The ratings downgrades followed an announcement by the company that it had renegotiated loan payments with its bank lenders, giving it a delay until the end of this year so it can complete the above transactions. Moody’s cut RCom's corporate family rating and senior secured bond rating to ‘Ca’ from ‘Caa1’, with a negative outlook, and Fitch downgraded the company’s long-term foreign and local-currency issuer default ratings to 'RD' (Restricted Default) from CCC' and revised the bond rating to 'C/RR4' from 'CCC/RR4'.
