The Vocus Group Ltd (ASX: VOC) share price slipped 1% to $3.60 in Monday morning trade after the dark fibre and home internet business was forced to deny reports in The Austalian newspaper's Dataroom column stating that it wanted to raise between $200 million to $300 million in capital.
In its rebuttal of the reports Vocus stated it refinanced some of its more than $1 billion debt pile in June 2019 and that net debt 'peaked' over the prior fiscal half "after funding the Australia Singapore Cable" project.
The Australian did not names its sources for the reports and it's no surprise Vocus immediately came out to deny them as these kind of rumours are likely to weigh heavily on a company's share price.
Vocus still has considerable short seller interest, with speculators hoping its debt pile and rumours around capital raisings may force the share price lower.
Vocus has previously tried to sell its New Zealand-based home internet business to pay down debt and I expect is willing to listen to offers for any of its consumer and NBN-facing businesses.
Tomorrow its rival TPG Telecom Ltd (ASX: TPM) will reveal the further impacts of the damage the NBN has created for its own business model when handing in its fiscal 2019 profit report.
TPG is also still in the middle of an attempt to persuade the ACCC to approve its proposed merger with Vodafone Australia.
