refinance

VODAFONE Hutchison Australia has secured $3 billion of debt from a consortium of banks and will use it to repay loans from its two shareholders and develop a credit rating.

VHA borrowed the money for three years from 12 banks based in Australia, Japan and Europe, but would not disclose the interest rate.

Owners Vodafone and Hutchison Whampoa each lent it $1.5 billion after Vodafone and Hutchison 3 merged to become VHA a year ago. The loan included a $500 million payment to Vodafone, which was worth more than Hutchison 3 when they merged.

Advertisement: Story continues below''Our growth and performance since the merger have generated strong cash flows that enable us to extinguish that debt,'' VHA chief executive Nigel Dews said yesterday.

He said VHA had no trouble finding financiers on the international market and the debt raising had been oversubscribed.

With mobile phone spectrum licences up for renewal, VHA might need to draw on funding to bid for more opportunities, although it had sufficient spectrum for current operations, Mr Dews said.

VHA still had a small amount of working capital, but would need more debt to fund large expansion projects