Debt-laden cable group NTL, which has over 300,000 customers in Ireland, will make a statement within days about future strategy for managing its $17 billion debt, according to reports yesterday.
'NTL is going to make an announcement about how it is to handle its balance sheet issues by the end of the month,' a source told Reuters.
NTL is widely thought to be discussing a financial restructuring, but has never commented on such a possibility.
The company may follow the lead of its rival and partner Telewest by bringing in a second major corporate investor, but only after a restructuring of its huge debt pile, industry sources have said in the past.
France Telecom, owner of 18% of NTL and a large amount of debt convertible into NTL shares, has proven reluctant to invest any more cash, the sources said, so another potential shareholder may be waiting in the wings.
Analysts said NTL bondholders stood to take control of as much as 70% of NTL shares if the cable group went ahead with an equity for debt swap to cut its $17 billion in debt, as investment bankers have suggested.
Bondholders said any new corporate investor would be unlikely to move until after such a restructuring took place.
Telewest - in which US software group Microsoft and cable giant Liberty Media each hold large stakes - and NTL are perennial subjects of merger talk since their networks do not overlap and they already cooperate on marketing.
The Sunday Times yesterday reported that NTL bondholders would be asked to effectively write off £6.3bn sterling of the £12bn they are owed, in exchange for up to 70% of the shares in a restructured NTL.
