BellSouth Seeking to Sell out of Latin America

BellSouth has confirmed that it is in discussions with respect to a potential sale of its Latin American operations to Spain's Telefonica . The deal has been estimated to be worth up to US$6 billion and will help BellSouth fund its share of the US$41 billion purchase price for AT&T Wireless.

BellSouth owns 40 percent of Cingular Wireless, which recently agreed to buy AT&T Wireless. The company ended last year with a total of 10.5 million clients at its 10 operations in Latin America.

The purchase would give Telefonica and its mobile unit, Telefonica Moviles access to new markets in Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela. The company would have overlapping operations in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala and Peru.

By acquiring BellSouth, Telefonica Moviles Peru would grow its market share to 74% from 52% which could cause problems with the local regulators.

Telefonica also has has operations are Brazil, Mexico, El Salvador and Puerto Rico."

Posted to the site on 8th March 2004