NEW YORK (Bloomberg) - Bermuda-based Digicel Group Ltd. chairman Denis O'Brien said he has not ruled out selling shares to the public as the company expands mobile-phone operations in Central America and the Pacific.

A public sale is "one of the things we've looked at in the past" and remains a possibility, the Irish billionaire said today in an interview. "At the moment we are fully funded."

Digicel was founded in 2001 and has 5.2 million subscribers in 22 markets, including Bermuda, El Salvador and Jamaica. The Caribbean-based company is considering an expansion into Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua as well as Papua New Guinea and Samoa, Mr. O'Brien said.

The company is dropping out of the mobile-phone market in Qatar because the Middle East has "gone crazy from a pricing point of view," he said.

The Irish Times reported in July that Digicel told bondholders the company had sales of $1.13 billion through March 2007, and increased subscribers to 4.7 million from 1.92 million a year ago.