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Ice Group states that it has reached an agreement with the dispute with Golden Tree Asset Management. The dispute has revolved around a loan agreement with Golden Tree and Ice Group’s subsidiaries and other lenders. These have now agreed to pay NOK 1.5 billion to put this behind them.
In the same press release, Ice Group writes about a new strategy and business plan that will require a total of NOK 1 billion to implement. The proposed plan and the agreement with Golden Tree will therefore require a total of NOK 2.5 billion in fresh money.
Ice Goup falls by 33 percent on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
– One billion will be used for investment opportunities, including the roll-out of the 5G network, the company writes.
Ice Group will engage DNB Markets and Pareto, as well as the law firms Bahr and Thommessen as facilitators in the process.
The company has, among other things, an ambition of a market share of 20 percent on smartphones in Norway, revenues of between four and five billion kroner in the medium and long term, and an adjusted operating margin of more than 30 percent.
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– The main elements in this process are to restructure the balance sheet to facilitate the growth aspects in the business plan and increase our financial flexibility, writes CEO Eivind Helgaker in the company’s quarterly report.
Loan agreement breach
It was in October last year that it became known that the lender Golden Tree had accused Ice of having breached the loan agreement 14 times since 2017. Golden Tree thus sued the listed telecom operator.
Golden Tree is an American asset management company founded in 2000. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in London and Singapore.
The company’s largest shareholder has indicated that it does not envisage participating in the potential capital raising, and has expressed interest in participating in a recapitalization by converting its share of the convertible bonds, writes Ice Group. The telecom operator’s largest shareholder is Ai Media Holdings (NMT).
In parallel, Ice Group is in discussions regarding the potential conversion to equity of its debt to the Rasmussen Group of NOK 546 million and the convertible bonds of NOK 760 million, the mobile operator writes.
I minus
Just before Ice announced this new strategy plan and possible fundraising, the company also provided figures for the third quarter of the year. The total «service turnover» ended at DKK 543 million, compared with DKK 494 million in the same quarter. The result ended at a negative DKK 255 million, compared with a negative DKK 223 million in the same quarter last year.
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The operating profit ended at a negative DKK 61 million.
The quarterly report states that the mobile operator gained 14,000 new subscribers in the third quarter, which means that the company has a total of 677,000 smartphone subscribers.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and / or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases using a link, which leads directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the content may only take place with written permission or as permitted by law. For additional terms look here.
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