Four weeks have passed since heavy rain caused several rivers in western Germany to overflow their banks. Dozens of people died or were injured, houses and roads destroyed. Now Deutsche Telekom has also drawn up an initial assessment of its flood damage. According to this, around 30,000 customers of the group are still without a landline, which is the bad news. But you can also see it this way: Around 75,000 affected telecommunications customers can use their landline network again. “It will take months before we supply all households again,” says CEO Tim Höttges.
Many telephone lines ran under the now destroyed streets, and the gray distribution boxes are also damaged in many places. Telekom is on site with around 1,500 specialists. They initially took care of around 300 cell phone locations that were temporarily down because they no longer had electricity or a fiber optic connection. The company was able to repair its cell phone network within a week, says Höttges: for example, cables were laid across rivers such as the Ahr or antennas were connected to each other via radio link. “With the fixed network it will take a little longer in parts.”
Telekom estimates its flood damage at more than 100 million euros – but this is very preliminary, says CFO Christian Illek. The group had “taken precautions with insurance companies”.
Overall, Telekom has now raised its profit forecast for the current year by 200 million euros. This is mainly due to the fact that the merger of its subsidiary T-Mobile USA with the local competitor Sprint is progressing faster than originally planned. Both mobile phone providers merged last year; since then they have been able to merge their networks and save many double expenses.
However, with the takeover, Telekom’s debt level rose to almost 128 billion euros. This is one of the reasons why the group has put two smaller divisions in the so-called showcase: A “very intense bidding competition” has broken out for T-Mobile’s business in the Netherlands, says CEO Höttges. “We are in the middle of a transaction in Holland.” In addition, Telekom is considering either selling part of its radio towers, bringing them into a partnership or going public. This initially brings in money for network operators; In return, of course, they have to pay rent for antenna positions.
On the stock exchange, the group temporarily gained two percent in value on Thursday, making it the strongest stock in the German leading index Dax. The Telekom share was listed as high as it had not been for 20 years.