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ublicly listed tower company PT Tower Bersama Infrastructure plans to issue more global bonds to refinance debt and aid its capital expenditure.

It seeks to issue up to US$500 million of foreign currency-denominated bonds after a recent $350 million issuance earlier this year, according to a company executive.

'€œWe will use the proceeds from the [planned] bond issuance to either refinance debts or capital expenditure,'€ Tower Bersama finance director Helmy Yusman Santoso told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The company will seek approval from a shareholders meeting on Wednesday, but the issuance will wait until later this year or the first quarter next year, he added.

In a company announcement made available on the Indonesia Stock Exchange on Monday, Tower Bersama revealed its plan to issue up to $500 million bonds with a maximum coupon rate of 8 percent through its Singapore-based subsidiary TBG Global Pte. Ltd.

Some of the proceeds will be used to extend loans and inject capital into another Tower Bersama unit, Tower Bersama Singapore Pte. Ltd. (TBS), to provide a loan facility to Tower Bersama.

The parent company will then use the facility to repay a $1 billion-facility agreement that was signed by the firm and its entities in November last year, to boost the firm'€™s liquidity.

The facility agreement consists of facility A'€™s term loan facility worth $400 million, facility B'€™s revolving credit facility worth $300 million and facility C'€™s revolving credit facility worth $300 million '€” all of which will mature by January 2020.

Tower Bersama'€™s total liabilities stood at Rp 18.76 trillion ($1.4 billion) as of the first quarter of this year, with total equity hitting Rp 3.87 trillion.

To slash its liabilities, the publicly listed firm previously issued $350 million-bonds in February through TBG, with the bonds being listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

The firm has announced that it will use the BB-rated bonds to refinance its revolving-loan facility worth $300 million and repay debts maturing in November this year.

Helmy explained that his firm was continuously hedging the $350 million-bonds to ease possible foreign exchange (forex) losses.

'€œWe'€™ve been gradually hedging the $350 million up to the current level of around 80 percent,'€ he said.

Between April and May, the firm entered into hedging contracts amounting to $140 million to mitigate fluctuations in interest rate and exchange rates from foreign currency denominated loans that commonly affected the firm'€™s financial performance.

Tower Bersama booked a 5.9 percent increase in its revenues to Rp 827.34 billion in the first quarter of this year from Rp 781.23 billion in the same period last year.

The firm'€™s growing revenue was, however, squeezed by rising expenses '€” including a 32.3 percent surge in financial expenses that hit Rp 318.6 billion, resulting in a 39.3 percent year-on-year (yoy) net profit-slump to Rp 319.8 billion.

Tower Bersama had a total of 10,868 telecommunications towers and 17,831 tenants as at end of March this year.

The firm'€™s shares dropped by 1.95 percent to Rp 8,800 a piece at Tuesday'€™s close. The stocks have fallen 9.3 percent so far this year, underperforming the broader benchmark Jakarta Composite Index 1.8 percent gain.