Foreign companies are interested in investing in struggling state-owned operator Hondutel, following the government’s decision to dispose of a majority stake in the incumbent last month.
A member of the commission which oversees the running of…
Foreign companies are interested in investing in struggling state-owned operator Hondutel, following the government’s decision to dispose of a majority stake in the incumbent last month.
A member of the commission which oversees the running of Hondutel told local newspaper La Prensa that a number of domestic and international investors had taken an interest.
In September the government announced plans to sell a controlling stake in Hondutel, which reportedly owes its employees US$96m, its suppliers another US$40m, and has contingent liabilities of up to US$125m.
Under the plan, 51% of the operator would be sold to a private company, 22.5% would go to employees, 4% to pension funds, and the government would retain a 22.5% stake.
The commission member, Eduardo Pavon, said Hondutel hoped to get feedback from the operator’s employees on the proposal this week. Previous attempts to privatise Hondutel have been blocked by the company’s trade union.
Honduras’s president Porfirio Lobo has said he wants the telco to have a strategic partner, which will invest in Hondutel to make it competitive, before the end of his term in office in January 2014.
The government had tried to auction off a 49% stake in its mobile operator – which has a small market share – before but none of the 13 companies interested in the stake made a bid deemed satisfactory enough, and the process fell apart earlier this year.
