Zeinal Bava, the CEO of Brazilian telco Oi, stepped down with immediate effect yesterday.
Oi, which is in the process of merging with Portugal Telecom (PT), said the company’s current CFO Bayard De Paoli Gontijo will take on the role of interim CEO…
Zeinal Bava, the CEO of Brazilian telco Oi, stepped down with immediate effect yesterday.
Oi, which is in the process of merging with Portugal Telecom (PT), said the company’s current CFO Bayard De Paoli Gontijo will take on the role of interim CEO until a replacement is appointed.
According to a report by Brazilian financial daily Valor Economico, Oi’s management has invited Amos Genish, the CEO of local broadband provider GVT which is being acquired by leading player Telefonica’s Vivo, to replace Bava.
The company did not elaborate on the reason for Bava’s departure and declined to comment further.
Former PT CEO Bava, who was appointed as head of the Brazil-based combined business in June 2013, has been instrumental in facilitating the merger which was first agreed in October last year.
In early September, Oi and PT revised the terms of their combination, following Rioforte’s default on a €847m (US$1.1bn) debt payment to the Portuguese operator which forced it to reduce its stake in the combined entity from 37.4% to 25.6%.
The default also prompted Bava’s successor at PT, Henrique Granadeiro, to resign at the beginning of August.
Analysts have suggested that with the departure of Bava, which led PT for years and made the merger between the Portuguese and Brazilian operations possible, the combination could now be undone, enabling national champion Oi to focus solely on Brazil.
Yesterday, TelecomFinance confirmed that Luxembourg-based holding Altice has been in talks with Oi to negotiate the potential acquisition of PT. In a securities filing, the Brazilian telco however said it has not taken any decision yet regarding the sale of PT and pointed out that it has not received an offer for the asset.
Bava’s departure comes at a critical time for the highly-leveraged Brazilian operator, which is trying to dispose of non-core assets to reduce its R$46bn debt (US$19bn) and improve liquidity.
In recent months, Oi has been rumoured as both a target and a bidder in the domestic market.
The country’s second largest operator, Telecom Italia (TI)-controlled TIM Brasil, has reportedly mandated local bank Banco Bradesco to review a potential bid for its rival, although the company denied that it specifically hired the bank for such purpose.
Meanwhile, Oi has hired BTG Pactual to advise it on the potential acquisition of TI’s 67% stake in TIM, which is worth an estimated US$8bn, although analysts are sceptical about whether it would be able to finance such a large deal, at least on its own. A sale of the Portuguese operations would give it much-needed cash to finance a potential acquisition.
