Nairobi - MTN Uganda, a unit of South Africa's MTN Group , got a $114 million syndicated credit, which will be invested in its network infrastructure, it said on Thursday.
The company, Uganda's biggest telecoms network operator with 8.9 million subscribers at the end of last year, said the loan was arranged by Stanbic Bank Uganda, which teamed up with Citi, Standard Chartered and Barclays for the deal.
The syndicated loan has a local currency portion equivalent to $74 million with the rest being in foreign currency.
MTN Uganda CEO Brian Gouldie said the company had repaid another syndicated loan that was raised in 2009.
“This placed us in an ideal position to fund our continued aggressive network roll-out of high speed data capacity across Uganda,” he said in a statement.
Rising competition has forced firms to raise their investment to keep up with demands for faster connectivity, he added.
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Parent MTN Group said on Wednesday its business was also under pressure in its two biggest markets of South Africa and Nigeria from tough competition and weak economic growth, as well as the rand's low exchange rate. It is also still negotiating with the Nigerian authorities over a $3.9 billion fine for failing to disconnect millions of unregistered SIM cards users from its local cellular network.
REUTERS