Telecom Lead Madrid: Telefonica has secured a $1 billion export credit facility to buy equipment from Ericsson.
Telefonica secured $472 million from an export credit facility in 2010 to buy equipment from Ericsson for businesses in Europe and Latin America, also with the backing of EKN and SEK.
“Telefonica continues to drive the use of diverse financing instruments, apart from bonds and loans, and to increase its financing deals with export credit agencies for financing equipment,” the Madrid-based company said in a statement.
Recently, Telefónica said it would spend more than €9.45 billion as Capex in 2013. Telefonica — while announcing the revenue guidance and full year financial result for 2012 — said the Capex to sales ratio will continue to be 14.2 percent and its expects growth in revenue this year. Last year’s revenue was supported by growth in mobile data and Latin America operations.
The Swedish National Export Guarantee Board (EKN) and the Swedish Export Credit Corporation (SEK) — Swedish export authorities — will support the export credit facility.
Telefonica, which operates in more than a dozen Latin American countries, said the network equipment and commissioning services from Ericsson were for various subsidiaries across the world.
In recent months Telefonica announced deals with Ericsson to roll out 4G networks in Brazil, Chile and Britain.
Telefonica slashed debt to 51.3 billion euros at end-2012 from over 58 billion euros last June.
Benefited from friendlier market conditions for southern European companies since the beginning of the year, Telefonica issued 1.5 billion euros of bonds in January.
Europe’s biggest telecoms operator by revenue has also raised funds in various markets, printing a Swiss Franc bond in November and issuing bonds through its Chilean subsidiary in October.
