28 Jul 2014

Relaxed lending rules help Chorus

7:41 am on 28 July 2014

Chorus should now be able to weather the next few years whatever the corporate regulator decides on how much it can charge for services over copper wires, an analyst says.

Last week, its banks granted it a number of relaxed lending rules, the most important of which was to relax the limit on its borrowing from 3.75 times operating earnings to 4.25 times.

Craigs Investment Partners analyst Arie Dekker said the relaxed banking convenants should be sufficient, even if the Commerce Commission's final decision was to reduce its prices further.

He said it at least assures the company that the funding is there as it goes through the appeal process on copper pricing.