Philippine cellco Globe Telecom has signed a seven-year PhP7bn (US$160.4m) loan facility with BDO Unibank to fund part of its 2011 capex and to repay existing facilities.
In a notice to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Albert De Larrazabal, Globe…
Philippine cellco Globe Telecom has signed a seven-year PhP7bn (US$160.4m) loan facility with BDO Unibank to fund part of its 2011 capex and to repay existing facilities.
In a notice to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Albert De Larrazabal, Globe Telecom’s CFO, said: “We intend to use the BDO facility to fund our capital expenditure requirements this year and prepay up to P3bn (US$68.7m) in loans that originally mature in 2012. The current low interest rate environment allows us to replace these loans with cheaper debt, generating savings for the company.”
This loan is the fourth term loan facility signed by the company in just under a year.
In December 2010, Globe Telecom signed a five-year PhP4bn (US$92.3m) loan facility with the Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co (Metrobank). The company also explained at the time that the money would be used to prepay part of its exiting debts, due to mature in 2012, and to fund part of its capex for 2011.
In September, Globe Telecom closed a five-year PhP5bn (US$115.4m) term loan facility with the Development Bank of the Philippines. At the time, Larrazabal was quoted saying that the loan would be used to finance the addition of new mobile, broadband and international submarine facilities.
Before that, in the first quarter of 2010, the company inked a PhP2bn (US$46m) loan with Allied Bank.
In the notice released on Friday, Globe Telecom explained that, as of the end of September 2010, the company’s debt-to-equity ratio was at 1.16.
Globe is owned by Singapore Telecommunications (45%), Ayala Corporation (34%) and public stockholders (21%).
