Bharti Airtel prepays Rs 5,985 crore of spectrum dues but stock unmoved 

Shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd closed on a flat note on Wednesday even as the telco said the firm along with its subsidiary Bharti Hexacom Ltd have prepaid additional Rs  5,985 crore to the Department of Telecom, thereby fully prepaying the high-cost interest liabilities of 8.65% pertaining to the 2024 auctions. Airtel's subsidiary Network i2i Ltd. has also voluntarily called and redeemed $1 billion in Perpetual Notes.

Bharti Airtel shares ended 0.04% lower at Rs 1,733 on Wednesday on BSE. The large cap stock has gained 8.58 per cent this year and risen 42.51% in a year. Bharti Airtel’s market cap fell to Rs 9.88 lakh crore. Total 1.11 lakh shares changed hands amounting to a turnover of Rs 19.33 crore on BSE.

Bharti Airtel stock has a one-year beta of 1, indicating average volatility during the period.

In terms of technicals, the relative strength index (RSI) of Bharti Airtel stands at 64.3, signaling it's trading neither in the overbought nor in the oversold zone. 

The telecom stock is trading higher than the 5 day, 10 day, 20 day, 30 day, 50 day, 100 day, 150 day and 200 day moving averages.

With the recent payment, Airtel has now prepaid Rs 25,981 crore 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.