Page 17 - bne_Tech_12_2020

Telecom
December 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 17
Magyar Telekom raises close to €200mn under cental bank bond purchase scheme
Magyar Telekom raised HUF71bn (€196mn) in proceeds from a seven-year bond issued in the framework of the Funding for Growth Scheme (FGS) of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB), auction results posted on the website of the Budapest Stock Exchange on November 24 showed.
The average yield for the bond, which has a 1.45% coupon, was 1.2579%, with no spread over HUFmid- swaps. Bids reached HUF96.95bn for the HUF70bn nominal value bonds MTel offered and sold.
MTel has a BBB+/Stable corporate rating from Scope Ratings. MTel intends to use the proceeds
Kazakhtelecom launches LPWAN network
Kazakhstan’s national telecoms operator Kazakhtelecom has expanded the coverage of its low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) via deploying 104 new base stations in West Kazakhstan, Zhambyl and Turkestan regions along with in the commercial capital Almaty, Telecompaper reported on November 27.
Kaztel is a diversified telecom services provider with leading positions in broadband, mobile and pay-TV in Kazakhstan. The company assesses its market shares at around 90% in fixed-line, 85% in fixed broadband, 61% in mobile and 42% in pay-TV services. Majority state ownership
for the development and modernisation of its landline and mobile network as well as for frequency purchases in the future, the announcement quoted CEO Tibor Rekasi.
Rekasi noted that the current bond issue was the largest in the history of the company.
The central bank launched the BGS more than a year ago to beef up Hungary's relatively small corporate bond market. Central bank policymakers recently decided to raise the programme's allocation from HUF450bn to HUF750bn.
enables Kaztel to function as a preferred provider of telecom services to government entities and municipalities.
Earlier in November, Kazakhtelecom announced that it launched LPWAN in 14 cities across Kazakhstan.
Kaztel owns most of its network infrastructure, in- cluding its backbone fibre network. As Kazakhstan's territory is comparable in size to that of western Europe, it is less-cost efficient for other market participants to completely duplicate its telecom infrastructure in the country of 19mn people.