Romanian telecom group Digi Communications NV, controlled by local businessman Zoltan Teszari, and operating in Romania, Hungary, Spain and Italy, reported that its operating profit (EBITDA) rose by 17% in 2019 versus 2018 to EUR 380 million, under comparable terms.

The transition to IFRS16 accounting standards added another EUR 66 mln to the figure resulting in a final IFRS16 EBITDA of EUR 446 mln. The company’s net profit thus more than doubled from EUR 18 mln in 2018 to EUR 41 mln in 2019.

The group’s revenues increased by 14% to EUR 1.1 billion in 2019, according to the unaudited preliminary financial report published by the company.

The debt ratios improved as a result of higher EBITDA under the new accounting standards, despite the rise in the group’s net and adjusted debt. Thus, the total debt increased to EUR 991 mln at the end of 2019, up 7.7% from the end of 2018, while the net debt rose by 8.2% to EUR 980 mln. And yet, the net debt to EBITDA decreased from 2.8 at the end of 2018 to 2.6 one year later.

Operationally, the total number of revenue generating units (RGU) increased by 8%, at the end of last year, reaching 16.1 million compared to 14.9 million at the end of 2018. This is the highest level of the total number of services provided by the company in its history.

On the Romanian market, the group continued to strengthen its position on both the cable and fixed television segments, with a 6.9% increase in the number of revenue generating units (4.1 million at December 31, 2019 against 3.8 million as of December 31, 2018), and the internet and fixed data segment, where the number of clients went up by 9.8% (2.8 million at December 31, 2019 as against 2.5 million, for the same period of the previous year).

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: the company)