Airtel Africa Repays Senior Notes For $505m
Airtel Africa plc has announced the completion of the early repayment of its $505 million 5.125 percent Guaranteed Senior Notes.
The telecom giant noted that the notes were originally due in March 2023 and as a result of early repayment the company would save $26.5 million in future interest payments.
With this repayment, Airtel Africa now has $1 billion worth of bonds remaining, due May 2024.
“Further to the announcement of 4 February 2022, Airtel Africa, a leading provider of telecommunications and mobile money services, with a presence in 14 countries across Africa, today confirms that it has completed the early repayment of its $505m 5.125 percent Guaranteed Senior Notes, originally due in March 2023, using cash balances available at Group level,” Airtel stated.
” Settlement includes all outstanding accrued interest up to the Redemption date of 7 March 2022.
“One-off costs of $17.6m for the applicable premium will be recorded within finance costs, while the Group will save an aggregate of $26.5m future interest payments from early redemption.
“Since the time of the IPO in June 2019, Airtel Africa has successfully pursued a strategy of strengthening its balance sheet through both deleveraging. and reducing US dollar debt exposure.
According to Airtel, “Over this period the Group has reduced its USD HoldCo debt by $1.7bn and improved its leverage ratio to 1.4x net debt to underlying EBITDA at December 2021. Following this early repayment of Senior Notes, the Group has $1bn of bonds remaining at HoldCo level, due in May 2024.
Airtel had four weeks ago announced that its 100 percent owned subsidiary, Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) B.V., has elected to redeem all of its 5.125 percent Guaranteed Senior Notes due 2023 (‘Notes’), aggregating to US$504,915,000, on 7 March 2022 (‘Redemption Date’), ahead of its maturity in March 2023.
The company disclosed that in addition to the outstanding principal, the redemption price will include settlement of all outstanding accrued interest up to the Redemption Date, plus the applicable premium in accordance with the terms of the Notes.
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