Jio, Airtel balance sheets comfortable despite spectrum purchases: Moody’s

With excess cash and raised funds on their balance sheets, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel NSE -0.98 % and Vodafone Idea NSE -3.64 % (Vi) are in a comfortable position to make spectrum purchase payments, which will not impact their credit quality, Moody’s said.

“As some telcos have large cash holdings while others recently raised debt to fund the purchases, there will not be a significant impact on their balance sheets, particularly as pricing competition abates and profitability improves across the sector,” Moody’s said in a note on Thursday.

Telecom operators, this week, bought 855.6 MHz of spectrum across 5 bands for total bids worth Rs 77,814 crore. Jio was the largest bidder buying Rs 57,122 crore worth of spectrum, followed by Bharti’s Rs 18,699 crore and Vi’s Rs 1,993 crore.