Luxembourg, January 14th, 2025 – Millicom International Cellular S.A. ("Millicom" or the “Company”), today announced that the Company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”) has approved a new shareholder remuneration policy under which it proposes to:
resume regular cash dividends;
sustain or grow cash dividends every year; and
maintain a prudent capital structure, with a long-term leverage target range of 2.0-2.5x
With this policy, the Board aims to return capital to shareholders from the cashflow generation of the Company in a consistent and prudent manner that reflects the capital-intensive and highly-regulated nature of the business, as well as the Latin American region’s elevated political and macroeconomic volatility.
Following the interim dividend of $1.00/share paid on January 10, the Board intends to approve an additional interim dividend, after Millicom publishes its Q4 2024 results, as follows:
$0.75/share to be paid in April 2025
Furthermore, the Board intends to propose for the approval of the Annual General Meeting of its shareholders to be held in Luxembourg on May 21, 2025, a dividend of $3.00 per share payable in four equal quarterly installments, as follows:
i am always looking for a reason keep playing the long game here, but want to be careful when another like-minded control owner remains on the other end.
No, it remains 95%. They would need to change jurisdiction.
That would firstly require a *unanimous* shareholder vote to do, which is obviously impossible. Secondly, it would not make sense from a tax perspective, both due to all the DTAs in Luxembourg and because Atlas in their turn has tax-free dividends in the current setup.
Thank you again for these thoughts ... very impressive work you have been doing on Tigo.
Interesting to see that after a failed offering (obtaining only 10% additional shares confirmed the bid price was too low), XN made another bid at the same $25.75, a price lower than the market price at that time, price that continued to increase slowly to$28+ until the recent announces.
With the delisting and the stock sale ongoing, XN has a huge opportunity to increase its stake at discount, but I expect him to stop before crossing the control threshold. I personally don’t believe that he needs the control in the short term, only because he already has it de facto. He can already have all decisions he wants.
Additionally, as far I know, XN has acquired mostly SDB. If he was planning to try to acquire the 100% soon, why he would delist the Sweden and not the US, which brings a higher risk, legal, reglementary, etc.? If the most important shareholders of Sweden don’t bother to have US shares, why US shareholders would bother to have Swedish shares?
Now that he has requested to resume dividends, he will start to be reimbursed for his investment. 1$ per share is low, but it’s only an interim dividend, let’s see what comes after. All at a moment where Colombia merger is in progress, and the tower sale is not fully closed. When these will be settled, there will be even more visibility on the amount of cash available.
It is not in XN interest that the share price climbs too high, too fast, as it was already the case when he made its bid last summer. As you said, by end of Q1, or Q2 we should get more visibility on where the price is going, hopefully much higher than where it is today.
The most obvious effect is that de-listing the SDB puts more volume in motion than de-listing in the US would. I'm also not sure that it is straightforward to extricate themselves from SEC reporting requirements anyway or that they would want to at this point.
Consolidated trading in a US listing is potentially a lot more valuable than a Swedish one. They cited a couple of reasons for why they are doing it, and I wouldn't just completely discount those in favor of only more "conspiratorial" motives.. Several things can be true at the same time.
Again, he secured financial muscles to buy out the covenants for all the bonds already at the lowball-offer this summer. As much is diclosed in the SEC-filings. (Approx. 80msek)
It's not clear what you are trying to say. Consent solicitations were sought but the amendments were never made. Separately, financing to cover all of the outstanding bonds was arranged as a necessary procedure for the bid, but was not intended to be used, as that would be stupid.
Agree, but the main issue still is that he has the means to navigate a change of ownership visavi the covenants. My first question is the material one. (Humbly forwarded!!)
My read of your take, is that a bid is out of the equation.?
What would you say is the single most important reason that he wouldn’t post a fair bid (indulging D&C, Brandes, you & me) when the SDR is delisted, post Q4?
Sincerely, I do hope that you read my queries with the humility they were written!! (A written word dry up fast and can easily be read as testily or critizising. That is NOT the case. On the contrary, I find your posts the most initiated around.
Luxembourg, January 14th, 2025 – Millicom International Cellular S.A. ("Millicom" or the “Company”), today announced that the Company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”) has approved a new shareholder remuneration policy under which it proposes to:
resume regular cash dividends;
sustain or grow cash dividends every year; and
maintain a prudent capital structure, with a long-term leverage target range of 2.0-2.5x
With this policy, the Board aims to return capital to shareholders from the cashflow generation of the Company in a consistent and prudent manner that reflects the capital-intensive and highly-regulated nature of the business, as well as the Latin American region’s elevated political and macroeconomic volatility.
Following the interim dividend of $1.00/share paid on January 10, the Board intends to approve an additional interim dividend, after Millicom publishes its Q4 2024 results, as follows:
$0.75/share to be paid in April 2025
Furthermore, the Board intends to propose for the approval of the Annual General Meeting of its shareholders to be held in Luxembourg on May 21, 2025, a dividend of $3.00 per share payable in four equal quarterly installments, as follows:
$0.75/share in July, 2025
$0.75/share in October, 2025
$0.75/share in January, 2026
$0.75/share in April, 2026
Thanks for the impressive write-up.
I have only started to appreciate recently how much time and effort must go into a comprehensive post, connecting multiple dots, like this one.
Thank you! There's room for both deep and shallow dives :)
He can’t afford a bad reputation with that aquisition gameplan hes got either
And that goes for the whole culture hes built up, attracting the right people etc aswell
much thanks for the updated valuation estimate.
i am always looking for a reason keep playing the long game here, but want to be careful when another like-minded control owner remains on the other end.
By moving a listing to US does this reduce the squeeze out % to below 95%?
No, it remains 95%. They would need to change jurisdiction.
That would firstly require a *unanimous* shareholder vote to do, which is obviously impossible. Secondly, it would not make sense from a tax perspective, both due to all the DTAs in Luxembourg and because Atlas in their turn has tax-free dividends in the current setup.
The only somewhat plausible way around the 95% would be to go for a statutory merger.
Thank you again for these thoughts ... very impressive work you have been doing on Tigo.
Interesting to see that after a failed offering (obtaining only 10% additional shares confirmed the bid price was too low), XN made another bid at the same $25.75, a price lower than the market price at that time, price that continued to increase slowly to$28+ until the recent announces.
With the delisting and the stock sale ongoing, XN has a huge opportunity to increase its stake at discount, but I expect him to stop before crossing the control threshold. I personally don’t believe that he needs the control in the short term, only because he already has it de facto. He can already have all decisions he wants.
Additionally, as far I know, XN has acquired mostly SDB. If he was planning to try to acquire the 100% soon, why he would delist the Sweden and not the US, which brings a higher risk, legal, reglementary, etc.? If the most important shareholders of Sweden don’t bother to have US shares, why US shareholders would bother to have Swedish shares?
Now that he has requested to resume dividends, he will start to be reimbursed for his investment. 1$ per share is low, but it’s only an interim dividend, let’s see what comes after. All at a moment where Colombia merger is in progress, and the tower sale is not fully closed. When these will be settled, there will be even more visibility on the amount of cash available.
It is not in XN interest that the share price climbs too high, too fast, as it was already the case when he made its bid last summer. As you said, by end of Q1, or Q2 we should get more visibility on where the price is going, hopefully much higher than where it is today.
The most obvious effect is that de-listing the SDB puts more volume in motion than de-listing in the US would. I'm also not sure that it is straightforward to extricate themselves from SEC reporting requirements anyway or that they would want to at this point.
Consolidated trading in a US listing is potentially a lot more valuable than a Swedish one. They cited a couple of reasons for why they are doing it, and I wouldn't just completely discount those in favor of only more "conspiratorial" motives.. Several things can be true at the same time.
From a betting to a bet ,,,,,,,
?? I didn’t post this. (Don’t even understand the meaning) It is obviously possible to hijack nics on this platform!
Again, he secured financial muscles to buy out the covenants for all the bonds already at the lowball-offer this summer. As much is diclosed in the SEC-filings. (Approx. 80msek)
It's not clear what you are trying to say. Consent solicitations were sought but the amendments were never made. Separately, financing to cover all of the outstanding bonds was arranged as a necessary procedure for the bid, but was not intended to be used, as that would be stupid.
Agree, but the main issue still is that he has the means to navigate a change of ownership visavi the covenants. My first question is the material one. (Humbly forwarded!!)
My read of your take, is that a bid is out of the equation.?
What would you say is the single most important reason that he wouldn’t post a fair bid (indulging D&C, Brandes, you & me) when the SDR is delisted, post Q4?
Price, I guess? If I had the skill to answer that question briefly, I wouldn't spend thousands of words trying to.
In a word, then- Price! You do not think he find the required bid-price is good business, despite he has bought nearly 50% for a penny on the dollar?
Sincerely, I do hope that you read my queries with the humility they were written!! (A written word dry up fast and can easily be read as testily or critizising. That is NOT the case. On the contrary, I find your posts the most initiated around.
I didn't read any criticism into it, just found the first comment hard to respond adequately to and the second one difficult to parse.
The second post was just an elaboration awaiting a reply on the original question.. My bad!