Portugal Telecom (PT) has been granted approval to buy a $5 billion stake in Brazilian operator Oi. Under the terms of the deal, PT will pay a 74 million BRL ($43.7 million) debt owed to Fistel, which is a government-backed fund that overseas development in the country’s telecoms industry.
“The deal creates no cross shareholdings. There are no conflicting licenses. We don’t think there are any impediments from the operational point of view,” said Joao Rezende from Anatel (the country’s regulator) said at a press conference.
It was back in July when we first reported Portugal Telecom will get stake in Oi, Brazil’s largest fixed-line operator and fourth-largest mobile operator. At that point, the Portuguese company sold its stake in Vivo, the country’s leading mobile operator, to Spanish Telefonica.
In terms of Oi’s performance, its Q3 net income rose to 427 million BRL ($251 million), up 64 million BRL from a year earlier. Sales, however, fell 3% to 7.33 billion BRL…
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]