An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Dig­i­cel Group is shift­ing its fo­cus from fi­nan­cial re­struc­tur­ing to growth af­ter re­fi­nanc­ing its debt, ex­tend­ing ma­tu­ri­ties to 2032, se­cur­ing a US$200 mil­lion re­volv­ing cred­it fa­cil­i­ty and re­pay­ing US$100 mil­lion in vol­un­tary debt in April 2026.

The telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions group is now look­ing to ex­pand its fi­bre, busi­ness-to-busi­ness and dig­i­tal ser­vices op­er­a­tions across its Caribbean mar­kets, with Trinidad and To­ba­go among the mar­kets ear­marked for fur­ther in­vest­ment.

Group chair­man Ra­jeev Suri, who took up the po­si­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2024 fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of Dig­i­cel’s re­struc­tur­ing, be­lieves the com­pa­ny has moved be­yond the sta­bil­i­sa­tion phase and is now in a stronger po­si­tion to pur­sue long-term growth.

In 2023, faced with a to­tal debt load es­ti­mat­ed at US$7 bil­lion, Dig­i­cel's cred­i­tors forced it in­to a se­ries of re­struc­tur­ings to avoid ab­solute in­sol­ven­cy. The cri­sis cul­mi­nat­ed in the com­pa­ny fil­ing for cross-bor­der re­struc­tur­ing through Bermu­da courts and seek­ing recog­ni­tion un­der Chap­ter 15 of the US Bank­rupt­cy Code.

Suri views the re­fi­nanc­ing, im­proved bor­row­ing terms, debt re­duc­tion and a cred­it rat­ing up­grade as ev­i­dence that the group’s fi­nan­cial turn­around is tak­ing hold.

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, he ex­plained that the re­fi­nanc­ing was de­signed to re­move the pres­sure of ap­proach­ing debt ma­tu­ri­ties and give man­age­ment the fi­nan­cial flex­i­bil­i­ty to in­vest for the longer term.

“We re­fi­nanced our ma­tu­ri­ties, and we ex­tend­ed them to 2032 and then on top of that we added a US$200 mil­lion re­volv­ing cred­it fa­cil­i­ty,” he ex­plained.

The re­fi­nanc­ing was com­plet­ed in 2025. In April 2026, Dig­i­cel vol­un­tar­i­ly re­paid US$100 mil­lion of debt. Suri al­so point­ed to a re­duc­tion in the in­ter­est rate on the group’s ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$648 mil­lion term loan.

Moody’s sub­se­quent­ly up­grad­ed Dig­i­cel Group’s cor­po­rate fam­i­ly rat­ing from B2 to B1, with a sta­ble out­look, in June 2026.

For Suri, these de­vel­op­ments rep­re­sent tan­gi­ble ev­i­dence of the progress made since the com­pa­ny emerged from its re­struc­tur­ing.

“When I first came in, I was wor­ried about liq­uid­i­ty and cash flow. Could we have sus­tained, durable cash flow? Now, that’s not a wor­ry for me at all,” he ex­plained.

He re­marked that the stronger fi­nan­cial po­si­tion has re­moved the need for man­age­ment to con­cen­trate on short-term sur­vival and al­lows the group to make in­vest­ment de­ci­sions based on longer-term op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“We have strength­ened the fi­nan­cial po­si­tion on every met­ric. We have re­fi­nanced the busi­ness. We’re now in a po­si­tion to re­duce our debt,” he stat­ed.

Trinidad in­vest­ment and Caribbean fo­cus

Suri said T&T re­mains an im­por­tant part of Dig­i­cel’s re­gion­al strat­e­gy, with net­work qual­i­ty and fi­bre ex­pan­sion cen­tral to its next phase.

The TT$20 mil­lion net­work in­vest­ment, to­geth­er with the South Trinidad fi­bre roll­out, forms part of the group’s wider com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty and cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence.

Suri in­di­cat­ed that re­li­able net­works are the foun­da­tion of the com­pa­ny’s busi­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly as de­mand for da­ta, broad­band and dig­i­tal ser­vices in­creas­es.

He al­so iden­ti­fied af­ford­abil­i­ty as a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion in Caribbean mar­kets, where con­nec­tiv­i­ty has be­come an es­sen­tial ser­vice rather than a lux­u­ry.

“Con­nec­tiv­i­ty is no longer a lux­u­ry item. It’s an es­sen­tial part of every­day life,” he said.

He point­ed to the role of broad­band pen­e­tra­tion in eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, ar­gu­ing that greater con­nec­tiv­i­ty can sup­port eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, im­prove liveli­hoods and help peo­ple in­crease their in­comes.

How­ev­er, the chair­man ac­knowl­edged that main­tain­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­fra­struc­ture across the Caribbean re­quires sub­stan­tial cap­i­tal in­vest­ment.

The re­gion al­so faces cli­mate risks, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing hur­ri­cane sea­son, when dam­age to in­fra­struc­ture can dis­rupt ser­vices and af­fect com­mu­ni­ties.

Dig­i­cel must there­fore bal­ance net­work in­vest­ment with the need to keep ser­vices af­ford­able.

Suri iden­ti­fied un­even lev­els of dig­i­tal adop­tion as an­oth­er chal­lenge, al­though he be­lieves the op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth re­main con­sid­er­able.

The group is tar­get­ing in­creased de­mand for fi­bre, post­paid mo­bile sub­scrip­tions, cloud ser­vices and cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty so­lu­tions.

Busi­ness-to-busi­ness ser­vices are ex­pect­ed to be­come a more sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tor to growth, as the tele­com chair­man be­lieves the com­pa­ny must re­main se­lec­tive about where it com­mits cap­i­tal rather than pur­su­ing every avail­able op­por­tu­ni­ty.

No im­me­di­ate plans for new mar­kets

Dig­i­cel has al­so been re­shap­ing its ge­o­graph­ic foot­print as part of its cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion strat­e­gy.

In Sep­tem­ber, the group an­nounced an agree­ment in­volv­ing the sale of its El Sal­vador op­er­a­tions to Gen­er­al In­ter­na­tion­al Tele­com.

Suri de­scribed the de­ci­sion as a move to con­cen­trate re­sources on mar­kets where Dig­i­cel sees stronger long-term op­por­tu­ni­ties.

El Sal­vador, he ex­plained, was a crowd­ed telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions mar­ket that re­quired con­sol­i­da­tion.

The trans­ac­tion was not in­tend­ed as a re­treat from growth, but a de­ci­sion to fo­cus in­vest­ment on the group’s core Caribbean op­er­a­tions.

“We’re go­ing to be fo­cused on the op­por­tu­ni­ties that cre­ate val­ue for the group and keep us fo­cused and nim­ble,” he said.

Dig­i­cel now op­er­ates in 24 mar­kets, fol­low­ing the an­nounced ex­it.

Asked whether the com­pa­ny was con­sid­er­ing en­ter­ing ad­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries, Suri in­di­cat­ed that there were no im­me­di­ate plans to ex­pand its foot­print.

He said the ex­ist­ing port­fo­lio pro­vides suf­fi­cient op­por­tu­ni­ties across mo­bile, fi­bre and busi­ness-to-busi­ness ser­vices.

The group al­so has a small­er mo­bile fi­nan­cial ser­vices op­er­a­tion in one of its ter­ri­to­ries.

Suri did not rule out fu­ture port­fo­lio changes, but main­tained that any de­ci­sions would be based on long-term strate­gic val­ue.

The chair­man al­so ad­dressed ques­tions about fur­ther work­force re­duc­tions fol­low­ing the cor­po­rate re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise.

He ac­knowl­edged that Dig­i­cel had re­duced head­count in the past and would con­tin­ue to op­er­ate with a lean and dis­ci­plined struc­ture.

How­ev­er, he main­tained that the cur­rent pri­or­i­ty was im­prov­ing net­work qual­i­ty, cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence and sus­tain­able growth.

The com­pa­ny al­so in­tends to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for em­ploy­ees to de­vel­op their skills as the busi­ness ex­pands in­to new ar­eas.

AI, com­pe­ti­tion and the next phase

Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence is an­oth­er area Dig­i­cel in­tends to in­cor­po­rate in­to its op­er­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cus­tomer ser­vice.

Suri ac­knowl­edged that the tech­nol­o­gy must pro­duce prac­ti­cal im­prove­ments rather than be­come an in­vest­ment pur­sued sim­ply be­cause it is at­tract­ing at­ten­tion across the busi­ness world.

The group’s ini­tial fo­cus is us­ing AI to im­prove cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence and make ser­vices more re­li­able.

He al­so sees op­por­tu­ni­ties in cloud com­put­ing and cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly as busi­ness­es in­creas­ing­ly de­pend on dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture.

The chair­man be­lieves Dig­i­cel must con­tin­ue to re­spond to changes in con­sumer be­hav­iour, in­clud­ing the grow­ing use of ap­pli­ca­tions such as What­sApp.

These plat­forms have dis­placed some tra­di­tion­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly text mes­sag­ing and voice calls.

How­ev­er, Suri views the shift as an op­por­tu­ni­ty rather than sim­ply a threat to tra­di­tion­al rev­enue streams.

He out­lined that mes­sag­ing ap­pli­ca­tions have con­tributed to in­creased da­ta con­sump­tion, cre­at­ing de­mand for re­li­able mo­bile net­works and broad­band ser­vices.

“Com­pe­ti­tion is good. It makes you bet­ter; it dri­ves in­no­va­tion,” he said.

For Dig­i­cel, the strat­e­gy is to cap­ture more val­ue from da­ta us­age, ex­pand fi­bre broad­band, at­tract more cus­tomers to post­paid ser­vices and strength­en its busi­ness-to-busi­ness port­fo­lio.

Suri al­so be­lieves the com­pa­ny’s man­age­ment team is bet­ter po­si­tioned to ex­e­cute this strat­e­gy fol­low­ing the changes made af­ter the re­struc­tur­ing.

He took a hands-on role when he be­came chair­man in Feb­ru­ary 2024, help­ing to re­cruit a new board and ap­point the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer and chief fi­nan­cial of­fi­cer.

His re­spon­si­bil­i­ty has since shift­ed to­wards gov­er­nance, strate­gic over­sight and sup­port­ing the ex­ec­u­tive team. He praised chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Mar­cel­lo Catal­do and the wider man­age­ment team for strength­en­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s ex­e­cu­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties. Suri brings con­sid­er­able telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ex­pe­ri­ence to the role, hav­ing spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly 26 years at Nokia, in­clud­ing lead­er­ship po­si­tions at Nokia Siemens.

Net­works and Nokia it­self

He over­saw ma­jor cor­po­rate trans­for­ma­tions dur­ing his time there be­fore mov­ing to In­marsat, where he led a turn­around fo­cused on rev­enue and earn­ings growth.

His tran­si­tion from chief ex­ec­u­tive to chair­man has in­volved a dif­fer­ent ap­proach to cor­po­rate lead­er­ship.

Rather than di­rect­ing dai­ly op­er­a­tions, he now fo­cus­es on en­sur­ing that man­age­ment has the right strat­e­gy, gov­er­nance and re­sources to de­liv­er re­sults.

For Dig­i­cel, the im­me­di­ate chal­lenge is to con­vert its im­proved fi­nan­cial po­si­tion in­to sus­tain­able earn­ings growth.

Suri point­ed out that the group has ad­dressed the liq­uid­i­ty con­cerns that once dom­i­nat­ed its agen­da.

The next phase will de­pend on dis­ci­plined in­vest­ment, re­silient in­fra­struc­ture and the abil­i­ty to re­spond to chang­ing cus­tomer needs.

He added that the Caribbean of­fers sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly as de­mand for broad­band, dig­i­tal ser­vices and busi­ness con­nec­tiv­i­ty con­tin­ues to ex­pand.