The Portuguese securities regulator, CMVM, has requested PT SGPS to provide additional information to shareholders, ahead of a meeting on 12 January to vote on the €7.4bn sale of PT Portugal to Altice.
In a statement on its website earlier today, the…
The Portuguese securities regulator, CMVM, has requested PT SGPS to provide additional information to shareholders, ahead of a meeting on 12 January to vote on the €7.4bn sale of PT Portugal to Altice.
In a statement on its website earlier today, the regulator said it has sent a letter to PT SGPS “reaffirming the request for further information and calling for suitable measures to be implemented in order to fully protect the rights of shareholders and the lawfulness of decisions to be taken”.
The CMVM also suspended trading in PT SPGS shares until the company agreed to provide the information requested, without providing more details.
The statement follows an earlier letter sent by the chairman of PT SGPS’ shareholder assembly, Antonio Menezes Cordeiro, to PT SGPS board in which he reportedly proposed to call off the Monday meeting. He argued that the merger agreement between PT SGPS and Oi is no longer valid, as a result of the Brazilian telco’s decision to sell its Portuguese assets.
PT SGPS, which holds a nearly 26% stake in Oi, has the right to veto the sale of PT Portugal, which the Rio de Janeiro-based telco owns following its merger with the Portuguese incumbent agreed last year.
In a statement on 7 January, PT SGPS said there was no reason to cancel the planned meeting, and that only PT SGPS shareholders had the right to suspend it.
The company also pointed out that the approval of PT Portugal’s sale would put an end to the creation of a “telecommunications leader operator, covering a geographical area of 260 million inhabitants and about 100 million clients”, as first announced in October 2013.
The ill-fated combination between Oi and PT SGPS soured in July, when Rioforte Investments, a unit of collapsed banking group Espirito Santo, defaulted on a €900m debt payment to the Portuguese operator. Oi claimed it was unaware of the investment, forcing PT SGPS to reduce its stake in the combined entity from 37.4% to 25.6%.
On Tuesday, Portugal’s Prosecutor General conducted searches at PT SGPS, as part of an investigation into the company’s investments over suspected fraud.
Meanwhile, PwC has concluded an independent analysis, in which it criticises PT SGPS’s risk management policy in relation to the Rioforte investment.
