Digicel’s service revenues for the period to the end of March increased by 5% on an underlying basis to $1.8bn.in 2001, posted a rebound in earnings in the financial year to March, a period in which the Irish businessman lost control of the telco to a group of bondholders.
A $1.7 billion debt-for-equity swap with the bondholders meant Mr O’Brien’s stake was slashed to 10 per cent. It reduced Digicel’s debt to an estimated $3.1 billion. Total borrowings had peaked at more than $7 billion in early 2019. The group’s earnings slumped over the following years amid declining voice sales and currency fluctuations across its markets, compounded by economic and political volatility in one of its key locations, Haiti.
Digicel was forced to put the equivalent of almost $100 million in escrow in Papua New Guinea in 2022 as the case entered arbitration.