STOCKHOLM, Sweden-The Swedish joint venture Svenska UMTS-nat AB signed a $1.2 billion term loan and revolving credit facility for its third-generation rollout. Margins, fees and allocations were not disclosed.
Svenska UMTS is the joint venture formed by Telia AB and Tele2.
Nordea and Svenska Handelsbanken, with a syndicate of other banks, arranged the credit facility. The deal involves full recourse to both shareholders in proportion to their equal ownership, and the facility is valid until 2008 with certain amortizations during the period.
“The rollout and financing of Telia’s UMTS network is proceeding on schedule with strongly reduced costs via our joint venture,” said Jorgen Latte, acting chief financial officer of Telia.
Telia, Sweden’s current-generation market leader, was not awarded a 3G license by the government and later formed the Svenska venture with Tele2, which was awarded a Swedish 3G license.
