They have debts in dollars and receive nearly worthless pesos in payments.
Their customer base seems good enough, although it was interesting to see that the had to cut 200K users of their cell phones because they were not making any calls, just getting them!
Of course CODETEL/Verizon did everything possible at the beginning to screw Tricom as much as possible. The same way that CODETEL totally diddled the Rancier Phone Co. They just denied them access to the intercommunication network....That is why for a little while there, only CODETEL existed, they forced the Ranciers to sell and then there were none. When Tricom started up they did the same thing, except Tricom threatened to sue--in US COURTS--and of course CODETEL caved in and gave them some interconnections...Really dirty business, but in this country they got away with it for years...just like Cervezería Nacional and Presidente and León Jiménes....At one point RJ Reynolds was selling Winstons in the DR. All of the Marlboro salespersons were instructed to tell their clients that if they saw Winstons in the stores, the Presidente salesman would not sell them any beer....Here is a fact: The
PR campaign for launching Winston was RD$16 million. L. León Jimenes spent over RD$20 million just on cigarette display cases for colmados and colmaditos and ventorillos!
Plus a rumored RD$3 million to one of the Antuns (You know, those "honest folks" that bankrupted a gold mine and broke the lottery?) that was running CORDE at the time...sssshhh!
This is why, apart from the 107% devaluation of the peso over the past few months, Tricom has had such an uphill climb.
HB
Tricoms latest numbers
