Reliance Comm makes early repayment of $1 bln loans

[sukishan]

Reliance Communications (RCOM.NS : 292 +15.9), India's second-largest mobile operator, has paid back more than 50 billion rupees ($1 billion) of local currency term loans ahead of schedule and will save on interest costs, a senior official said on Tuesday.

"We have paid it more than three years ahead of schedule to a number of Indian and foreign banks," Ramesh Venkat, chief financial officer at the mobile firm's parent Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, told Reuters by telephone.

"This is resulting in an interest cost saving of about 7.5 billion rupees a year on an annualised basis...," he said, adding a "very large portion" of the interest saving would flow to the bottom line as it had been paid out of internal accruals.