Boom, third leading player on satellite TV market, takes out a new loan

After ending 2008 with debts double the 17m-euro revenues, and failing to sell to Romtelecom fail this year, the operator has contracted a loan from an Israeli private firm.

DTH Television Group, an Israeli-held company owning Boom TV, the third largest provider of satellite TV services domestically, in late October contracted a loan from Eurocom Networks & Technologies Israeli company, according to the data the operator registered with the electronic archive of secured transactions.

Archive data do not specify the value of the loan, and the companies' representatives could not be contacted for details, but a plausible hypothesis is that the money will be used to finance the company's debts and operations.

The company in late 2008 had 74m-euro debts and in 2008 net losses stood at 33.7m euros, double the company's revenues. The operator a year ago took an over 18.5m-euro loan from UniCredit Tiriac Bank.

The company is facing tough competition from RCS&RDS and Romtelecom, but manages to stay on the market particularly owing to its sports content offer. Boom TV won the rights to broadcast UEFA Champions League football matches for three seasons. The rights helped the company maintain its customer base and also generated new streams of income as Romtelecom pays to re-broadcast Boom sports channels. As a matter of fact, the company put up the revenues its gets from Romtelecom as collateral for the Eurocom loan.

Romtelecom this year negotiated the takeover of Boom TV, but eventually gave up the acquisition. Officially, Romtelecom denies the information.

Starting from Israeli press reports, there have been rumours on the domestic market regarding the imminent acquisition of Boom TV by Eurocom. Eurocom, a company held by Shaul and Yosi Elovitch, is one of the biggest private groups in Israel involved in several industries, including communications, system integration, media, financial services and real estate. The group's officials could not be contacted by edition close to provide details about the value of the loan.