SSI turns debt-free

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, AUG. 2. SSI, an information technology training and development company, has become debt-free.

It pre-paid secured debt for Rs. 70.3 crores on July 31. The company had contracted a loan of Rs. 45 crores from IDBI early this financial year to meet part of its capex needs. Further, it had an outstanding debt of Rs. 19.80 crores out of a loan of Rs. 24 crores with the financial institution. This loan was availed of between November 1999 and March 2001. Also, there was a pending debt of Rs. 5.5 crores with the ICICI which had sanctioned a loan of Rs. 7.38 crores when SSI took over Indigo Technologies.

Mr. R. Rangarajan, Chief Financial Officer, SSI, said the company had foreclosed the debt since the interest rates had begun to decline.

SSI had to resort to short term loan from IDBI primarily because it had already parked its funds in higher yielding (19.5 per cent) double indexation scheme. The catch, however, was that the funds had to be invested for 366 days. To that extent, the money invested in March 2000 was locked till sometime ago. The prepayment of this loan does not involve any foreclosure charge.

The company is seeking a waiver of foreclosure charge of Rs. 43.25 lakhs for its outstanding debt of Rs. 19.80 crores with the IDBI. It has, however, paid ICICI Rs. 20.24 lakhs as a foreclosure charge to prepay its pending debt.

Mr. Rangarajan said that there might be still some outstanding unsecured debt of around Rs. 16-17 lakhs. Though it had stopped taking public deposits in 1999, the company had chosen to retain deposits which had not matured at that point of time.

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Section  : Business
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