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Summit Communications Ltd. is set to mobilise a loan of Tk 7.0 billion to implement its investment plan on expanding network capacities, improving existing facilities, and building submarine cable networks.
The country's leading telecommunication infrastructure company will arrange the loan from a syndicate of eight local and foreign banks, and the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has already approved the proposal in this regard recently.
The lending banks are: Trust Bank Ltd., Eastern Bank Ltd., Dhaka Bank Ltd., Commercial Bank of Ceylon Plc., Woori Bank Ltd., HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank Ltd. and Prime Bank Ltd.
Prime Bank is the lead arranger of the composite financing facility that would provide Tk 1.5 billion, followed by Trust Bank Tk 1.4 billion, Eastern Bank Tk 1.0 billion, Dhaka Bank Tk 1.0 billion, Commercial Bank of Ceylon Tk 860 million, HSBC Tk 700 million, Woori Bank Tk 332 million, and Standard Chartered Bank Tk 168 million.
Talking to the FE, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Summit Communications Ltd Md. Arif Al Islam said the money will be invested in building and developing submarine cable network.
He said Summit had taken initiatives last year to mobilise the fund through launching Tk 1.0 billion mudaraba bonds and Tk 1.20 billion non-convertible zero-coupon bonds to finance their expansion plan, but failed due to delays in the approval process.
Now, they were taking the bank loan to accelerate implementation of the plan, he added.
Earlier in June last, the BTRC had approved another syndicated loan of Tk 3.30 billion Summit taken from different banks.
The Summit Communications Ltd. provides services to mobile phone operators, ISPs and ICT sector through its 47,000 km optical fiber network, internet gateway, and tower-sharing.
It has licences for providing Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network (NTTN), International Terrestrial Cable (ITC), International Internet Gateway (IIG), Interconnection Exchange, National Internet Exchange, and Tower-sharing services.
Recently, it also obtained a licence along with two other private firms for the first time to build and develop submarine cables.
Summit is eying to join Reliance Jio Infocomm of India, NTT Ltd. of Japan, or Campana of Singapore to build and develop the subsea network.
According to industry people, an investment ranging from US$60 million to $100 million would be required to join a subsea cable consortium.
Though Summit is successful in building nationwide NTTN services, the newer services of tower-sharing and submarine are yet to take momentum.