(IDEX Online) - Russian diamond mining giant ALROSA said it had prepaid $450 million of bank loans.
ALROSA made an early repayment of a $250 million loan from Rosbank, and a $200 million portion of the existing Raiffeisenbank loan, both raised in December 2017. The repayments reduce its debt by more than 27% to $1.17 billion.
The bank loans were repaid with the cash proceeds received from the company's auction sale of gas assets in February 2018.
"As part of the efforts to improve liquidity management, ALROSA repaid short-term bank loans for a total of $450 million ahead of schedule," said Alexey Philippovskiy, Deputy CEO - Chief Financial Officer of ALROSA. "The resulting savings on interest payments amount to $9 million, positively impacting ALROSA's financial performance in 2018," he added.