Mexican conglomerate Grupo Salinas has taken full control of Iusacell, paving the way for AT&T to take over the mobile operator.
Salinas’ joint venture partner in Iusacell, Grupo Televisa, said it has completed the US$717m sale of its 50% stake in the…
Mexican conglomerate Grupo Salinas has taken full control of Iusacell, paving the way for AT&T to take over the mobile operator.
Salinas’ joint venture partner in Iusacell, Grupo Televisa, said it has completed the US$717m sale of its 50% stake in the telco.
Salinas agreed to acquire the remainder of the business in September. In November, AT&T struck a deal to buy Iusacell from Salinas for US$2.5bn including debt.
The US giant won approval for the transaction from Mexico’s telecoms regulator, the IFT, in December. The IFT has imposed some unspecified conditions on the transaction to avoid risks to competition in markets where Iusacell would compete with Mexican incumbent America Movil, which up until recently had AT&T as a minority investor.
The Iusacell takeover follows AT&T’s purchase of a 41.3% stake in DTH operator Sky Mexico, as part of its US$48.5bn takeover of US satellite broadcaster DirecTV.
Iusacell, which also encompasses a separate brand called Unefon, has 8.6 million subscribers leaving it a distant third in the local mobile market behind America Movil’s Telcel – which has roughly 70% market share – and Telefonica’s local unit, which has around 20%.
Mexico has imposed a 50% market share cap on America Movil, requiring the telco to sell a significant proportion of its subscribers.
AT&T has been touted as the obvious buyer of the assets, suggested to be worth in the region of US$17.5bn, although the US operator has said it does not need to acquire them for its business plan in Mexico.
Televisa buys Cablevision Red
Televisa has wasted no time in spending the proceeds from the sale of its stake in Iusacell.
In a statement, the broadcast giant said it has bought the entire interest of Cablevision Red for approximately Ps3bn (US$204m) and taken on its Ps7.2bn (US$491m) debt pile.
The cableco offers triple-play services in a number of Mexican states and has a total of 650,000 subscribers.
Televisa said Cablevision could generate Ps2bn (US$136m) of revenues and Ps1bn (US$68m) EBITDA for 2015.
