News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. June 1, 2018: A major Caribbean telecommunications company has just dumped the beleaguered West Indies cricket team. Here’s what you should know:
1: Caribbean telecommunications giant, Digicel, which last Friday told bondholders it plans to cut debt through a mixture of earnings growth and so-called inorganic measures, has ended its sponsorship of the West Indies cricket team a year early.
2: Digicel had initially entered into a 13-year-old sponsorship with Cricket West Indies which was renewed in 2016 for a three-year period. But that was called off this week.
3: While the value of the sponsorship was never truly known, sports analysts have speculated that it may have been costing the company well over $5 million annually.
4: The sponsorship was among the highest-profile in Digicel’s stable.
5: Digicel is currently on an investor roadshow in the United States and Britain. It says it aims to reduce borrowings to reduce capital expenditure to between $330 million and $350 million, according to Bloomberg.
6: The report comes as the Washington, D.C.-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) says Latin American and the Caribbean lag in sports spending. The report says while the region produces first-rate athletes in numerous professional sports, exercise is a marginal activity.
