Globe borrows from Mizuho Bank to partly fund capital expenditure

March 13, 2018

Globe Telecom Inc. said it borrowed money from a Japanese bank to partly finance its capital expenditures this year.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange Tuesday, the Ayala-led telco said it signed P6 billion and $20 million seven-year term loan facilities with Mizuho Bank Ltd.

"The loans shall be used to partially finance the company’s capital expenditures and general corporate requirements,” Globe said.

Globe earlier programmed between $850 million and $900 million in capex yearly until 2019 to further expand its mobile and broadband networks.

Globe spent around P42.5 billion or $844 million in capex last year to support the growing subscriber base and its demand for data. Of the total capex spent last year, about 82 percent was for the data service needs of its customers.

Globe has a total of 37,517 base stations, with over 24,700 for 4G3, to support the service requirements of its customers.

Globe posted a net income of P15.1 billion last year, down by five  percent from P15.9 billion in 2016 due to increased investments in its data network pushed non- operating expenses and depreciation charges higher for the period.

The two percent increase in non- operating expenses was largely due to the increase in interest expenses and spectrum amortization related to the San Miguel Corp. telco asset acquisition.

Globe’s mobile revenues grew 7 percent to P98.5 million last year from P92.3 million in 2016, driven by the continued mobile data revenue growth.

As of last year, Globe had 60.69 million subscribers , up 2 percent from last year’s P59.33 million. DMS