Alrosa prepays $600 mln of VTB loans from company funds
MOSCOW. Feb 28 (Interfax) - Alrosa prepaid $600 million of bank loans received from VTB , the diamond miner said.
The loans were issued in 2012 and were extended in 2014 until October 2018.
The bank loans were repaid on February 28 with cash from Alrosa's operations. As a result, Alrosa reduced its loans and borrowings from $2.3 billion to $1.7 billion, while its average interest rate decreased from 6.6% to 6.3%.
"Alrosa believes that the established long-term partnership with the companies of VTB Group - cooperation on the raising of debt financing being just one example - will continue going forward," the company said.
"As part of the conservative liquidity management policy, Alrosa prepaid long-term bank loans in the total amount of $600 million, which allowed us to reduce the average cost of debt and ensure a comfortable debt repayment schedule," said Igor Kulichik, CFO.
In 2017 Alrosa did not have debt to repay and now has been freed up from paying in 2018 too. In 2019 the company has to pay back $720 in loans and in 2020 $1 billion in Eurobonds. All of Alrosa's debt is denominated in dollars. The company's net debt to EBITDA ratio at the end of September 2016 was 0.8x, down from 1.6x a year earlier.