S&P Global Ratings today announced that it has lowered its rating on Cell C to SD (selective default) from CCC.<\/p>\n
This downgrade comes after Cell C renegotiated the terms of certain aspects of its debt, with the backing of the applicable lenders.<\/p>\n
S&P explained that while no conventional payment or legal default event has occurred to date, it views the repayment profile restructuring as a distressed exchange.<\/p>\n
This, S&P argued, is tantamount to selective default given Cell C’s weak liquidity position.<\/p>\n
\u201cFurthermore, because the schedule of agreed repayments has slowed, we believe lenders will receive less value than the promise of the original agreement,\u201d S&P said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also believe there was a realistic possibility of a conventional payment default before the exchange, given the company’s weak liquidity position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cell C said the recapitalisation and other related transactions will improve its liquidity and long-term competitiveness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe related measures will improve the efficiency of Cell C\u2019s network, while decreasing capital expenditure,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
In parallel, Cell C is implementing operational efficiency measures including leveraging its existing roaming agreement and right-sizing the business to remove inefficient costs.<\/p>\n
This includes redirecting resources to revenue generating activities which will help to \u201cposition Cell C within the rapidly changing competitive environment in the mobile telecommunications industry\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn line with international trends, we are actively pursuing ways to leverage our existing roaming agreement,\u201d said Cell C CEO Douglas Craigie Stevenson.<\/p>\n
He added that they are looking at network synergy and consolidation to ensure that Cell C remains a competitive player with improved network access and quality.<\/p>\n
S&P Global Ratings has downgraded Cell C to \u201cselective default\u201d, but the company says its recapitalisation will improve its liquidity and long-term competitiveness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":262665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[355,35,17314],"class_list":["post-311521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-sp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}