Anil Ambani led Reliance Communications seems to be one of the biggest casualty of Jio’s freebies. After RCOM posted a third quarterly dip in its subscriber base and revenues in Q4FY17, it put out a statement to investors and lenders promising them to repay around Rs 25,000 crore in unsettled debt by 30th September 2017 after its two business deals—Aircel merger and Brookfield tower sale—gets completed. “The said amount will cover not only all scheduled repayments, but also include substantial pre-payments to all lenders,” RCOM said. The company’s net debt stood at Rs 44,345.3 crore as of Q4FY17, which is an increase of 3.4% when compared to Rs 42,802.5 crore debt in Q4FY16. RCOM’s merger with Aircel’s wireless business unit which was signed in September last year will help the company reduce debt by Rs 14,000 crore, while its tower sale deal with asset management company Brookfield will additionally contribute to Rs 11,000 crore in debt reduction. However, RCOM is yet to receive approval from lenders on theses proposed transactions. Note that RCOM also has two other important deals which will help its fetch more spectrum and reach. The merger between RCOM and Sistema Shyam, which owns the MTS brand in India, has received all necessary approvals, RCOM said and is expected to complete by June 2017. The company is also sharing spectrum with its competitor Jio under the 850 MHz band; this went live 6 months ago. Share prices drop, credit firms downgrade position on RCOM Apart from this, RCOM’s…
