TDC Net chief to leave

Andreas Pfisterer, the CEO of TDC Net, the now separated infrastructure wholesale arm of the Danish telco TDC, is to leave the company.

TDC Net announced that its board had struck an agreement with Pfisterer that he would leave within the next 12 months. Pfisterer will continue to focus on improving the company’s results and on ensuring a smooth handover to a new CEO in the meantime.

TDC Net chairman Henrik Clausen said Pfisterer’s tenure had delivered “solid financial results and…a clear business plan fo rhte coming years” but that, “given the stable situation”, it was time to find a new CEO ho could take the company to the next phase of its development.

He said that this would be focused on a plan that would “support the green, digital transformation of Denmark”.

Pfisterer said was proud of delivering “Denmark’s first national 5G network” and of helping to strengthen the company’s “leading position in high-speed broadband”.

Fitch Ratings, initiating coverage of TDC Net, has given the company’s long-term debt a rating of BB with a stable outlook. The ratings agency said that TDC Net benefited from “leading market positions in Denmark in both the mobile and fixed telecoms segments” where it enjoys subscriber shares of about 40% and 55% respectively and its position is underpinned by anchor customer Nuuday, also spun out from TDC as its service provider business.

Fitch said TDC Net carried limited commercial risks in mobile, thanks to its long-term agreement with Nuuday, but noted there was less visibility in fixed line, albeit with a likely modest level of risk.

Fitch said that “with the demerger of TDC Group, most commercial risks in the mobile segment are transferred to Nuuday” while, in fixed-line, “DC NET’s main competitive areas would be those where its high-speed broadband overlaps with utilities’ fibre and cable networks”. However, it argues that rollouts by duplicating networks across TDC Net’s fibre and cable footprints would likely be economically unjustifiable.