Telekom Srbija received loans from international financial institutions without any guarantees, the General Manager of that state-owned enterprise, Vladimir Lucic, boasted. According to him, this is the result of good business and the company’s reputation in the world. N1’s interlocutors say that additional borrowing is not to be praised, but should be the results of the investments in which that money is invested.

Taking a loan without a guarantee usually means a more expensive loan, the former governor of the National Bank explained.

„Loans can be obtained without guarantees. They will most likely be less favourable than they would otherwise be with a guarantee or other form of security. When banks approve loans, regardless of the fact that they don’t have explicit guarantees, they can be relatively safe, we’re talking about companies that have large assets and that have regular high cash flows,“ Dejan Soskic said.

Telekom Srbija has all that, but it also has a state background.

„We’re talking about a state-owned enterprise. Creditors, regardless of the fact that there is no state guarantee, know that in the end, in case of a bad situation and bad results, the state will not let that company fail on the market. We once had a situation with JAT, and with some other companies, where the state, although it wasn’t a guarantor, ended up taking over various types of debts of those companies,“ Goran Radosavljevic said.

And while Telekom’s debt is growing, examples of gallant spending of the money that the company has at its disposal are appearing.

„There are very credible analyses regarding excessive borrowing and entry into new forms of business that required huge investments,“ Soskic added.

„Some parameters show that Telekom paid too much for a certain number of users on the market, for certain companies. The efficiency of those investments is not such that they bring a certain increase in profit. And that this could threaten business in the future,“ Radosavljevic noted.

Analysts have been talking about Telekom’s investments for a long time, primarily about its overindebtedness and overpriced investments, the profitability of which is questionable – such as the hundreds of millions invested in the purchase of major cable operators or the rights to broadcast foreign sports leagues.