Digicel swapped $1.7B of debt to bondholders and pivoted from survival to growth

Digicel grew fast and borrowed to match: founded in 2001 by Irish entrepreneur Denis O'Brien, the Jamaica-based operator expanded from one market into 25 across the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific, amassing a debt load that peaked around $7 billion. In 2022 O'Brien ceded control to bondholders in a debt-for-equity swap that cut $1.7 billion from the balance sheet, and the company has since refinanced its remaining obligations to roughly $2.7 billion.

In early 2024 the company handed the helm to Marcelo Cataldo, a Paraguayan former Millicom executive, marking the shift from balance-sheet repair to growth. His thesis, laid out to Developing Telecoms and reported by the Jamaica Observer: Digicel's 10 million customers across 25 markets are under-monetised. Coverage reaches 95% with 4G, yet only 70% of mobile users are on 4G, many still on feature phones, and about 90% of the base is prepaid — though $150–200 smartphones remain a stretch for many households and outward migration keeps core markets from growing.

The growth plan leans on structure rather than luck. In most Caribbean markets Digicel faces a two-player race against Liberty Latin America, not the crowded fields of Latin America or Eastern Europe; regulators now court operators as digitisation partners. Fibre — paused at the height of the debt crisis — is ramping again in Guyana and Curaçao toward a reach of about 900,000 households; enterprise ICT (cloud, data centres, unified communications) is a differentiator few regional rivals offer; and a Caban Energy deal brings clean power to operations such as Jamaica's.

Debt cut from ~$7B to ~$2.7B after the swap and refinancing; EBITDA and cash targets being met per the CEO; fibre reach ~900,000 households and rising.

The 2022 swap put the loss on bondholders instead of forcing liquidation, cutting debt by $1.7B and freeing cash to operate.

Handing the CEO job to an outside telecom operator (Cataldo, ex-Millicom) signalled the turnaround would be run as a growth business, not a workout.

Only 70% of users on 4G against 95% coverage meant monetisable demand already existed inside Digicel's own network.

Duopoly market structure and supportive regulators made post-crisis investment less risky than in Digicel's growth-at-all-costs years.

Fix the balance sheet with someone else's equity first: a founder who cedes control can keep running the company; one who fights for it usually loses it.

As of the Jamaica Observer's October 8, 2025 report, Cataldo said it was 'still early days' but that Digicel was meeting its EBITDA and cash targets and delivering on commitments to stakeholders. Debt stood at about $2.7 billion after refinancing, fibre build-out had resumed in Guyana and Curaçao, enterprise services and network resilience — including the Caban Energy clean-power deal — anchored the next phase of the turnaround.