By Greg Avery – From Denver Business Journal

Hurricane damage in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean islands is keeping TV companies Liberty Global plc and Dish Network Corp. from providing service in region, and it’s not clear when either company’s business there will recover.

Denver-based Liberty Global, the largest international cable TV operator worldwide, doesn’t know when it will be able to restore cable TV, broadband services or mobile phone after damage wrought by hurricanes Irma and Maria, the company says.

Dish (Nasdaq: DISH), the Douglas County-based satellite TV company, turned off its services in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to ensure customers lacking power there are not charged for the services they can’t watch, the company said Monday.

“The damage from Hurricane Maria has been unimaginable, and we want to make it clear to our customers that they will not be charged for service they can’t receive during this time,” said Reynaldo Pagani, general manager of Dish Puerto Rico. “Right now, our top priority is ensuring our customers, employees and retail partners are safe and cared for, while helping deliver satellite internet to crucial relief sites.”

The impact of the storms is likely far larger for Liberty Global, which owns physical fiber optic, cable and mobile phone infrastructure throughout the Caribbean, where it’s the largest provider of cable, broadband and mobile phone services.

As of last Friday, the company had restored half of the mobile phone service across its Cable & Wireless subsidiary’s networks on Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Turks & Caicos, Liberty Global said.

The severe damage to all infrastructure on Puerto Rico, including electrical power and other utilities, is slowing the process of even assessing damage, Liberty Gobal said.

“Puerto Rico’s power supply and transmission system [were] severely impacted by the hurricanes and power is still only available in a limited portion of the island. Accordingly, we cannot predict when and to what extent [the company’s Liberty Cable Puerto Rico and C&W brand] will be able to restore services across the island,” Liberty Global said in a statement to investors.

Liberty expects insurance will help cover the cost of rebuilding fiber optic and cable systems as well its operating losses during recovery, but it’s too early to estimate costs or recovery timelines, the company said.

In the first half of 2017, Liberty Global generated $841.7 million revenue from its operations in the Caribbean and Seychelles islands and another $215 million from customers in Puerto Rico.

Liberty Global’s undersea cables in the region were damaged but did not lose service, with the exception of a temporary outage to Dominica during the storm, the company said.

The operations of Liberty Global in the Caribbean, Panama and Chile are known as the LiLAC Group division (Nasdaq: LILA). The stock has declined 8.5 percent since hurricanes to $24.15 per share.

Macquarie Capital Inc. downgraded its outlook for LiLAC’s shares to neutral due to the need to spend on rebuilding and lost residential services and a decline in tourism.

“Connect[ion] activity, build-out delays and the associated repair work including restoring network outages will likely be long-lasting,” wrote analyst Amy Yong.

Liberty Global’s LiLAC group owns $3.7 billion worth of telecom and video distribution equipment and $1.1 billion in land throughout the region, with another $1.1 billion of cable set-top boxes and other equipment in customer homes, according to Liberty Global regulatory filings.

IMAGE: Pedestrians walk past debris on the street from Hurricane Maria in the Miranda neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. ALEX WROBLEWSKI | BLOOMBERG

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