Stanbic leads MTN Uganda $114 million loan

May 27, 2016 in Business, Companies, Finance, Financial Services, Investment by Editor

KAMPALA May 26 – Seven years after it secured a $100 million corporate loan facility, MTN Uganda was back in the market today signing up a $114 million syndicated credit facility with Stanbic’s Uganda unit.

MTN, Uganda’s largest telecoms operator said it was borrowing the money to invest in further expansion of its network that closed 2015 with 8.9 million subscribers in Uganda’s fiercely competitive telecom market.

The loan was arranged by Stanbic Bank Uganda in concert with Citi, Standard Chartered and Barclays Bank.

“This placed us in an ideal position to fund our continued aggressive network roll-out of high speed data capacity across Uganda,” MTN said in a statement adding that part of the proceeds from the facility would be deployed towards adding additional kilometers of fibre optic cables, building a data center and head office.

The facility consists of a dual medium term loan and revolving credit facility raised in both local currency equivalent to $74 million and foreign currency amounting to $40million.

During the signing of the MOU between MTN and the lenders, Brian Gouldie, MTN’s CEO said investment in infrastructure development is critical to wade off competition as well as ensuring that customers receive quality voice and data products and the funding will help it achieve its investment strategy.

“We are continuously building our network capacity in line with our optimistic forecasts of demand as we also guard our market share from impending competition” says Gouldie.

Stanbic Uganda Ceo Patrick Mweheire said the successful and expeditious execution of the five year facility was a testament to “the market’s confidence in MTN’s Uganda plans to improve the country’s telecommunications industry.”