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Denis O’Brien’s Digicel has extended the deadline for a $3 billion (€2.65 billion) debt swap for the fifth time in just two months as it looks to ease its $6.7 billion debt burden.
The Caribbean and Pacific islands telecommunications group wants holders of two different bond classes to accept new terms, which would extend the length of time that Digicel has to repay the debt.
The company is asking lenders to push out the repayment of $2 billion from 2020 to 2022 and the repayment of $1 billion to 2024 from 2022.
On Tuesday, the company pushed the deadline out to December 7th, having previously set the deadline as November 30th.
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The latest extension has pushed the date out to 10 weeks ahead of the original timetable.
The first deadline for acceptance of the bond swap was set for the last Friday in September, before it was changed to October 19th, and then again until the first Friday of November, followed by the 16th and then the 30th of this month.
Having revised the deadline offer, Digicel noted it continues to be in “constructive discussions with an ad hoc group of noteholders”.
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