Telecommunications and mobile money provider Airtel Africa announced the signing of a new $500m (£359.35m) loan facility with a group of relationship banks.
The FTSE 250 company said the new committed facility consisted of a combination of a revolving credit facility and term loans, with tenor of up to four years.
It said the facility would be used to partially refinance its 750m (£647.14m) euro-denominated bond due 20 May.
The balance of the euro-denominated bond would be repaid with existing group cash, to reduce gross debt and associated interest costs.
“The new loan facility further strengthens the core liquidity of the group,” the board said in its statement.
“It also has prepayment flexibilities that will allow the group to optimise the efficiency of its capital structure with the free cash flows and cash receipts anticipated over the next 12 months following the recent announcements related to tower sales and mobile money minority investments.”
Airtel said the banks which participated in the facility included a diverse group of existing global relationship banks, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Citibank, HSBC, JPMorgan, Standard Chartered Bank, as well as two Indian relationship banks, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
At 0829 BST, shares in Airtel Africa were up 0.28% at 71.6p.
