Hurricanes hit O’Brien’s Digicel for $3m

Digicel, the Caribbean mobile carrier controlled by businessman Denis O'Brien, has told bondholders that its last quarterly earnings dropped by 10 per cent, according to a release seen by Bloomberg News.

Digicel’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation in the quarter to the end of March dropped to $253 million (€218 million) from the same period a year earlier, as it altered tariffs and took a $3 million hit from hurricanes, the company said in the presentation.

Full-year earnings dropped 2 per cent to just over $1 billion, according to the earnings release, while revenues from its customer base declined 3 per cent. The company is also said to have incurred restructuring costs of $34 million.

Mr O’Brien founded Digicel in 2001 and turned it into a mobile-phone empire with customers spread from El Salvador to Vanuatu, financing the expansion partly with high-yield debt.