GLOBE Telecom, Inc. has secured a P15-billion loan from Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., the listed telecommunications company said in a regulatory filing on Monday.
The loan will fund part of the company’s capital expenditures (capex) for the year, its debt refinancing and other corporate requirements, Globe said.
For the first six months of the year, the company said it had invested about P37.7 billion in capex projects, lower than what it had spent a year earlier.
Its first-semester spending represents a 25% decline from the level in the same period last year. The company said it is expecting to reach about P71.5 billion or $1.3 billion in spending by the end of the year.
Ninety percent of the company’s capex spending was set aside for data network rollouts to meet the growing data demand in the country, Globe said.
As of June, it said the company had built around 542 new cell sites and upgraded 5,087 mobile sites to LTE (long-term evolution), while also deploying 148,000 fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) lines.
Globe said that it had also built about 356 new fifth-generation (5G) sites as it aims to expand 5G coverage in the country
Its efforts to deploy 5G sites have resulted in 5G outdoor coverage of 97.44% in the National Capital Region and 91% in parts of Visayas and Mindanao, the company said.
At the local bourse on Monday, shares in the company gained P22 or 1.24% to end at P1,800 apiece. — Ashley Erika O. Jose
