Davy joins the roster for Digicel’s IPO

Denis O'Brien's Caribbean telco Digicel has added Davy stockbrokers to the ticket for its upcoming flotation in New York. It's expected to raise in the region of $1.5 billion (€1.3 billion) when it lists, possibly next month, weeks earlier than anticipated.

According to an updated filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Dublin brokerage will act as lead manager, while Deutsche has also been added to a roster that includes several top institutions, such as JP Morgan and Credit Suisse.

The updated filing also confirms that Mr O’Brien will continue to receive a quarterly dividend of $10 million from the company, which could also boost payments to its billionaire founder.

Digicel said “in future years, the company intends to evaluate increasing its distributions” to shareholders.

The company has also updated its financial statements, to incorporate its result for the quarter to the end of June 2015. In its reporting currency of US dollars, revenues fell by almost $10 million to $669 million over the three months, while operating profit fell by about $20 million to $165 million.

Local currencies

Digicel’s net loss after tax was reduced, however, from $52 million to $31 million, mainly as a result of a major fall in its interest costs.

Digicel’s underlying performance in local currencies in its main markets rose slightly. The fall in revenues is mainly due to the strengthening US dollar, which makes its debts in that currency more difficult to pay off as its sales are generated in the weaker currencies of its main markets.