Romanian RCS&RDS' parent company Digi boosts 9-mo net profit

Revenues rose 10.8% on the year to 684.1 million euro, Digi said in a statement filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB on Wednesday.

Digi's business in Romania posted the highest revenues among its business lines, of 491.1 million euro, up 9.6% on the year in the first nine months of 2017. Revenue growth in Romania was primarily driven by an increase in Digi's mobile telecommunication services revenue generating units (RGUs) and average revenue per user, cable TV and fixed internet and data RGUs.

During the period January-September, Digi's business in Hungary posted revenues of 113.1 million euro, 12.8% up on the year, while its business in Spain generated 66.9 million euro revenues, up 7.4% on the year.

Operating profit increased 66% on the year to 95.3 million euro, while operating expenses rose 7% to 596.6 million euro in the first nine months of 2017.

In October, Digi contracted a 200 million euro loan mainly to support the acquisition of Hungarian telecommunications operator Invitel.

The bridge loan, granted by ING Bank N.V and Citibank N.A, has a maturity of 12 months and it can be extended for an additional period of up to 6 or 12 months. Some 140 million euro of the procceds of the loan will be used for the acquisition of Invitel Tavkozlesi, part of Invitel Group, announced in July. The transaction is to be carried out through Digi's Hungarian subsidiary, Digi Tavkozlesi es Szolgaltato Kft. (Digi HU). The remainder of the loan will be used for general corporate purposes.

RCS&RDS, founded by Romanian businessman Zoltan Teszari, comprises two companies - Romanian Cable Systems (RCS) founded in 1994, and Romanian Data Systems (RDS) founded in 1998.

Its parent company, Cable Communication Systems, now Digi Communications N.V., indirectly operates telecommunications groups in Hungary, Spain and Italy through RCS&RDS.

Shares of Digi Communications started trading on BVB in May, following the successful closing of the largest IPO of a private company concluded on the Romanian capital market. The value of the offering topped 944 million lei ($241 million/204 million euro).

Digi is part of BVB's blue-chip BET and BET-TR indices.

Digi's shares traded 0.29% higher at 35 lei at 1409 CET on the BVB on Thursday.

($=0.8466 euro)