Liberty Telecoms seeks early exit from rehab

Liberty Telecoms Holdings Inc., jointly owned by diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and Qatar Telecom, is seeking the early termination of its rehabilitation proceedings now pending before a lower court.

Liberty Telecoms president and chief executive officer Bienvenido Bañas informed the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) that the company together with subsidiaries wi-tribe Telecoms Inc. and Skyphone Logistics Inc. is set to terminate the rehabilitation proceedings.

“The Liberty Group will seek the early termination of the proceedings in view of the successful implementation of the Revised Rehabilitation Plan,” Bañas said.

The Liberty Group was placed under corporate rehabilitation and debt restructuring after it suspended its operations in April 2005 due to lack of capital required to operate.

The Makati City regional trial court approved the revised rehabilitation plan of the Liberty Group in December 2006.

Under the plan, the company’s original schedule of getting out of rehabilitation is in December 2016.

Liberty Telecoms is still pursuing plans to launch various services in the telecom- munication industry despite the dominance of major players led by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Ayala-led Globe Telecom Inc.

Liberty Telecoms chairman and SMC president Ramon S. Ang earlier disclosed that the company intends to venture into the mobile business to provide voice calls, short messaging system (SMS) or text messaging as well as mobile broadband.

Liberty Telecoms managed to trim its total comprehensive loss by 31.7 percent to P210.16 million in the first quarter of the year from P307.58 million in the same period last year.

Revenues declined 1.44 percent to P77.25 million in the first three months of the year from P80.27 million in the same period last year.

Likewise, the company managed to reduce its cost and expenses by 13.1 percent to P280.94 million from P323.4 million amid lower retail and utilities; taxes and licenses; professional fees; personnel costs; repairs and maintenance, commission expenses; among others.

The company’s deficit, however, stood at P10 billion as of end-March this year but its major shareholders remained fully committed to support the operations of the Liberty Group.