Snap!

Denis O’Brien appeared on CNBC earlier this afternoon to discuss the cancellation of the public share offering by his telecom company Digicel.

It’s all good.

Denis O’Brien: “Our board made the right decision last night. We were very, very happy with the decision, woke up this morning, we’re very happy that we pulled the IPO. And we’ll come back to the market in time when the market conditions are right for our business.”

CNBC: “Denis, before we go on and discuss the market conditions, to try and keep everybody on board, in simple terms what do you do? What does your business do?”

O’Brien: “We’ve a mobile phone and fixe lined business and cable TV and also a digital business in the Caribbean and also Central America and the Pacific islands as well. We operate in 31 countries. We’ve about $2.8billion of revenue and we make approximately $1.2billion of EBITDA.”

CNBC: “So, just talk me through the process. That A) an IPO, the board says let’s IPO, you employ bankers and presumably you start a roadshow…”

O’Brien: “Yeah.”

CNBC: “…and then you. Just give us some colour, if you would, on what went on during that process.”

O’Brien: “Well we started the process six months ago, led by our chief executive Colm Delves, we’d a small team, then the team widened. And you know we hit the road about two and a half weeks. It was quite volatile, particularly in the emerging markets and, of course, the discount people are looking for in IPO are very, is very high, it’s widened. And, you know, we’re not backed by private equity. It’s all owned by myself and my colleagues. So we didn’t need to do an IPO at any time so. It was opportunistic from our point of view and we’ll come back, we don’t need any funding at the moment. It’s a great feeling, not to need any funding.”

CNBC: “Since you are a private company, can you give us an idea of the magnitude of the figures. What you were after? What they told you, you’d probably price at?”

O’Brien: “Yeah well there are comparables. Obviously we’re comped against a basket of other companies but they decline by half a turn of EBIDTA during the roadshow, so we didn’t hit our price target, so we decided well, if we don’t hit our price target, we’re not going to sell our shares. Why would you sell your front garden if when you know it’s worth a lot of money? And why would you sell it at a discount?”

CNBC 2: “I also understand you’ve been watching emerging markets, is that one of the reasons you’re concerned about this current environment?”

O’Brien: “Well you know emerging markets is a bit choppy at the moment. A lot of outflow from fund managers, a lot of caution, a little bit of jittery, you know, although this morning it’s a bit better but, over the last few weeks, you know, we’ve seen a lot of outflows and people are just a little bit concerned about the future. You know, in our circumstances, when you don’t have to do an IPO, and you’re not hitting your price target, you just defer or move it out a year.”

CNBC: “So that’s what I was going to ask you: when do you think the time will be right? What did the bankers say to you about when next the markets won’t be volatile and, presumably, will be in a rising environment?”

O’Brien: “Well, I mean it’s very difficult to get bankers to tell you, you know, what the future holds cause nobody really knows. But I think the markets will settle over the next three to six months with oil recovering. So, you know, I actually think that the market will be fine then and there won’t be as big a discount and, you know, people will be hitting their IPO ranges.”

CNBC 3: “You are losing money. I mean you have adequate access to capital, for what you need from other capital markets, including the debt markets?”

O’Brien: “Well you know, we operate in free cash-flow of $840million on $1.2billion of EBITDA so, you know, we’ve no maturities until 2021 of any consequence. So we’ve funded our balance sheet of very cheap prices in the bond market in the last 12 months so we’re very comfortable, we’re generating a huge amount of cash. We can do our MNA strategy and really develop our business so, you know, alone, we’ve spent $1.5billion on CAPEX, building fiber to the home, fibre business networks across all our markets.”

Watch here

Earlier…

I’m here in CNBC reception with Denis O’Brien — receptionist clearly has no clue that he’s a billionaire celeb who needs a green room

— Stephanie Strom (@ssstrom) October 7, 2015

Earlier: Benched