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Tiphone defaults on bonds, trading suspension extended
Publicly listed mobile phone distributor PT Tiphone Mobile Indonesia has defaulted on bond coupon and principal repayments of about Rp 250 billion.
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Publicly listed mobile phone distributor PT Tiphone Mobile Indonesia has defaulted on bond coupon and principal repayments of about Rp 250 billion. (File/tiphone.co.id)
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ublicly listed mobile phone distributor PT Tiphone Mobile Indonesia has defaulted on bond coupon and principal repayments of about Rp 250 billion. In response, the Indonesian Central Securities Depository (KSEI) has announced a payment postponement.
In a statement released on June 19, the KSEI announced the postponement of principal and interest payments for holders of Tiphone’s TELE01BCN3 shelf-registered bonds, worth a total of Rp 231 billion with an original maturity date of June 22.
In a separate statement published a day before, the KSEI announced that bond coupon payments for Tiphone’s shelf-registered TELE02CN2 bonds would be postponed. The value of the delayed payments was Rp 19 billion and the maturity date was June 19.
“The bourse has decided to extend the temporary suspension of PT Tiphone Mobile Indonesia’s securities trading in all markets, effective from the first trading session on June 22, 2020, until further notice,” the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) announced on Monday.
The IDX has prevented the trading of Tiphone’s securities since June 10 because of concerns over the company's ability to pay its debts.
Tiphone’s shares, traded on the IDX under the stock symbol TELE, closed at Rp 121 per share on June 9. This year, the shares have fallen 60 percent, a steep decline compared to that of the benchmark Jakarta Composite Index (JCI), which was down 21.92 percent year-to-date.
Tiphone, whose main business is the sale and distribution of mobile phone vouchers and cellular phones, announced that the pandemic had impacted its business operations.
“This pandemic has slowly begun to impact several company business outlets. The company’s outlets cannot operate because of the closure of malls following the large-scale social restrictions [PSBB] enforced by the government,” Tiphone corporate secretary Semuel Kurniawan said in a written statement on May 26.
“The company is still trying to maintain the continuity of the business.”
Tiphone did not immediately respond to The Jakarta Post’s request for comment.
As of Sep. 30, 2019, the company’s total liabilities stood at Rp 4.94 trillion, up 11 percent from Rp 4.45 trillion on Dec. 31, 2018. Its total assets were Rp 9.23 trillion, up 10.6 percent from Rp 8.34 trillion.
The company’s debt-to-asset ratio was 53.56 percent, indicating that most of the company’s assets were financed through debt.
Indonesian rating agency Pemeringkat Efek Indonesia (Pefindo) analysts Ayuningtyas Nur Paramitasari and Christyanto Wijaya said the postponement of the issuance of Rp 150 billion in shelf-registered bonds had put further pressure on the company’s liquidity.
They said the liquidity pressures were exacerbated by the company's weekly working capital requirement for its voucher business of about Rp 600 billion to Rp 700 billion.
“We expect that the company’s liquidity position is under pressure following lower revenue generation and longer receivables collection periods because of the COVID-19 outbreak,” the Pefindo analysts wrote in a statement released on June 19.
Pefindo has lowered the company’s rating and the ratings of its outstanding bonds. The most recent rating revision was a downgrade of the TELE02CN2 bond to idD, which indicates a payment default, from idCCC, a rating that indicates vulnerability to non-payment.
The analysts said the company’s corporate rating could be lowered to idD if it could not pay its financial obligations upon their due dates. This would be yet another downgrade in a series of revisions the company has experienced throughout the year.
Tiphone’s corporate rating now is idSD (selective default), which indicates that the company has failed to pay one or more of its financial obligations but still makes timely payments on others. It was downgraded by Pefindo earlier this month from idBB+. That rating followed a revision from idBBB+, which the agency issued last month.
