RCom board meet tomorrow to mull selling realty to cut debt

Reliance Communications will hold a board meeting on Sunday to consider, among other things, unlocking value from the real estate properties held by the company and its subsidiaries, the company said in an exchange filing on Friday.

According to a report on the CNBC-TV18, the company, which has been on a drive to reduce its huge debt pile, has also appointed two investment banks for the purpose.

The key properties of the company in the country are the 135-acre Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) in Navi Mumbai and Reliance Center in New Delhi. The group also has an 80-acre IT park in Hyderabad, which is owned by Reliance Infrastructure, media reports said.

The Economic Times reported quoting two sources that the group may be looking at selling part of these properties as it is not using the entire office space.

RComm had in December 2012 signed an agreement with China’s Wanda group, a retail player, to set up a joint venture to build integrated township projects in India.

The two will initially develop Navi Mumbai and Hyderabad properties, a PTI report said.

The first priority of the joint venture will be to “develop integrated township projects in India, including but not limited to commercial buildings and residential condos / apartments, hotels and retail space,” the report quoted from the press release.

According to the ET report, the telecom company had a net debt of Rs 39,000 crore, of which it repaid Rs 6,000 crore in the June quarter.

During the quarter, the company completely paid back two syndicated ECB loan facilities of $500 million each, which were availed in 2007 from a group of international banks, it said in a statement on 1 July.

It has also tied up two agreements with Reliance Jio to share tower and also the fibre optic network. The deals’ have been valued at Rs 12,000 crore and Rs 1,200 crore, respectively. There have also been reports that the company is trying to sell its under sea cable arm Reliance Globalcom.

These deals are likely to bring down its debt by about Rs 21,000 crore the CNBC-TV18 report said.