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Digicel plans to sell $1.4 billion of bonds
Thursday, February 15, 2007by Dara Doyle
DUBLIN, Ireland (Bloomberg): Digicel Group Ltd, a holding company of Irish billionaire Denis O'Brien, plans to sell $1.4 billion of bonds to help fund the purchase of the 22 percent of a Jamaica-based mobile-phone operator he doesn't already own.
The notes will mature in 2015, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The issuer will have the right to pay interest on "a portion" of the notes "in kind at a higher interest rate," the statement said. The bond sale and the share purchase offer depend on each other.
The bonds will be obligations of Digicel Group and won't be guaranteed by Digicel Ltd., the Jamaican operating company, the company said.
Dublin-born O'Brien, who bid for Eircom Group Plc in 2001, founded Digicel after selling his phone company Esat Telecom Group Plc to British Telecommunications Plc in 2000.
Digicel Group is offering to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Digicel Ltd. for cash, the company said. The purchase offer will be financed by funding from O'Brien and the issuance of the notes, the company said.
Digicel operates in 22 markets including Anguilla, Barbados, Haiti and Jamaica, according to the statement.
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