Reliance Infocomm gets $750 m loan

MUMBAI: Mobile phone services firm Reliance Infocomm Ltd said it had raised $750 million of debt in the form of loans from Export Development Canada (EDC) and a U.S. Exim Bank backed line of credit.

Reliance Infocomm, which is India's largest CDMA-based mobile services provider and 45-percent-owned by Reliance Industries Ltd., said the latest loans marked the closure of its total $2.2 billion debt financing campaign.

"The financing consists of $500 million of Exim Bank guaranteed loan and $250 million of EDC loan and has a total repayment tenor of 10 years after a one-and-a-half year build out period of the telecom network," Reliance said in a statement.

The credit facilities were arranged by Citigroup. A Citigroup special purpose vehicle, GOVCO, is the Exim Bank-backed lender.

Reliance Infocomm currently has a customer base of nearly 9 million wireless users in one of the world's fastest growing major mobile markets.

The company said the debt would go to financing the expansion of its mobile network across 5,000 towns and cities and help in the roll out of its broadband communications services.

The telecoms arm of the Indian petrochemicals and refining major Reliance, posted a second-quarter net loss of around 500 million rupees, but expects to turn a profit by March 2005.