Mexican Telecom Co. Axtel Downgraded To 'BB-' From 'BB' On Pressured EBITDA And Leverage; Outlook Negative
- Mexican integrated telecommunication company (ITC), Axtel S.A.B. de C.V. (Axtel), reported a significant decline in EBITDA generation in the last 12 months as of June 30, 2022, mainly related to a continued decline in services provided to federal entities. This has pressured Axtel's leverage, and we now don't expect its debt-to-EBITDA ratio to fall below 3.0x until 2024 (from 3.6x as of June 30, 2022).
- We expect Alfa S.A.B. de C.V. (Alfa; BBB-/Positive/--) to complete its spin-off of Axtel from the group in the coming months, after the holding company's announcement on July 12, 2022.
- On Aug. 24, 2022, S&P Global Ratings downgraded its issuer-credit and issue-level ratings on Axtel to 'BB-' from 'BB'.
- The negative outlook reflects our expectation that the decline in revenues and customer losses will not be offset in the next 12 months, reflecting a weakening of its business risk profile. This could cause Axtel to continue to lose market share, have declining cash flow, and increase refinancing risk for its next maturity in 2024.
MEXICO CITY (S&P Global Ratings) Aug. 24, 2022—S&P Global Ratings took the rating action described above. The downgrade reflects the company's failure to meet our deleveraging expectations of debt to EBITDA below 3.0x, mainly due to continued revenue losses over the past two years. These revenue losses began in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Mexican government made cuts to its nonessential spending budget, mainly affecting the nonrecurring services Axtel provided to federal entities. Axtel reported debt to EBITDA of 3.6x in the last 12 months as of June 30, 2022 (versus 3.0x in the same period of 2021 and 3.0x we expected in our previous review). This is due to delays in deploying 5G, constructing data centers in Mexico, as well as disruptions in the worldwide semiconductor supply. We now expect Axtel to take more than two years to deleverage below 3.0x, so we revised our financial risk assessment for the entity to a weaker category.
Even though our previous forecast for the company from Dec. 31, 2021, already included lower revenue generation from government entities through the first half of 2022, we didn't expect some extraordinary pressures on Axtel's EBITDA generation, such as the provisions related to the amount due under telecom company Altan's bankruptcy proceedings of about MXN300 million (plus tax) as reported in 2021 audited financial statements. Axtel is supporting Altan in the $388 million financing agreement reached by Altan in June 2022 with the federal government, creditors, shareholders, and customers. This will translate in EBITDA margins for Axtel below 30% for 2022 (versus our previously expected 35%).
Because we expect Alfa to complete the spin-off of Axtel in upcoming months, we expect Axtel to focus its decision-making on its future growth and on mitigating the negative effects of high competition in the market. We will continue to monitor Axtel's growth strategy and customer growth in the next 12 months to assess the company's effectiveness and positioning in the industry. Otherwise, this could lead to a weakening of the business risk profile.
Axtel has an upcoming maturity of its senior unsecured notes in 2024. In our view, the company will continue to evaluate and address in the coming months different refinancing options through discussions with financial institutions to refinance its notes well ahead of their maturity. We believe Axtel has well-established access to different liquidity sources and relationships with banks. We will continue monitoring this refinancing strategy and if the company does not provide any updates within the next 12 months, we could see refinancing risks that could trigger a downgrade.