Bleeding heavily, DITO plans to secure more funding this year

MANILA  -DITO CME Holdings Corp. is eyeing to secure additional funding this year to finance the expansion plans of its telecommunications and digital businesses.

“The group has plans to do various fund-raising activities within 2023, which include a follow-on offering at the parent company level,” the operator of third telco player DITO Telecommunity said in its latest financial report.

It did not disclose, however, how much will they plan to raise this year.

DITO said that it had entered into a shareholder loan agreement amounting to P5.2 million on Feb. 13. The listed company can access the credit line any time to settle operating expenses and maturing obligations.

So far, it had drawn P1.3 billion from the loan facility.

“In addition, to fund the group’s expenditures regulated to the construction of the network, the group secured commitments from creditors for a project finance loan facility up to $3.9 billion (P217.4 billion), which is expected to be closed in 2023,” the company said. It is still subject to regulatory approvals.

DITO saw its net losses widen last year despite registering revenue growth amid the surge in total costs and expenses.

https://business.inquirer.net/396408/dito-cme-net-loss-widened-to-p11-24b-in-2022

Its net loss attributable to parent company’s shareholders grew to P11.24 billion last year from P9.67 billion in 2021.

Consolidated net loss, meanwhile, climbed to P25.63 billion for the period from P17.95 billion in 2021.

“This was mainly due to higher operating expenses and higher other charges offset [the growth in] gross revenue generated from the start of DITO Telecommunity’s commercial operations since Mar. 8, 2021,” the company explained.

Total revenues, which were mainly generated by DITO Telecommunity, improved by more than threefold to P7.28 billion last year from P2.19 billion in the same period in 2021.

“The group derives its revenue mainly from the transfer of goods and services over time and at a point in time by providing mobile services to subscribers in prepaid arrangements such as SMS (short message service), voice, data and internet,” it explained.

As of end-December 2022, it has 15 million subscribers.

DITO CME has also interest in digital media, content and lifestyle platforms; and managed analytics hub which supports data-driven business strategies. INQ