Spanish incumbent Telefonica has held discussions with HSBC and Morgan Stanley to judge the market appetite for a sale of its call centre business Atento, TelecomFinance has confirmed.
The company sees Atento as a non-core asset and is assessing its…
Spanish incumbent Telefonica has held discussions with HSBC and Morgan Stanley to judge the market appetite for a sale of its call centre business Atento, TelecomFinance has confirmed.
The company sees Atento as a non-core asset and is assessing its options, it is understood.
Telefonica attempted to list 51% of Atento’s shares last year, but was forced to call off the IPO due to adverse market conditions.
The Spanish incumbent originally set the price range for the IPO at €19.25 to €25, which would have valued Atento at approximately €1.15bn to €1.5bn (US$1.7bn-US$2.2bn)
It subsequently reduced the lower end of the price range to €17.25, but was still ultimately forced to call off the sale.
Spanish newspaper El Confidencial reported today that Telefonica is now looking to sell Atento to an investor in an auction. This could potentially include an industrial group in the sector or a risk capital firm.
A Telefonica spokesman declined to comment.
Atento operates in 17 countries. These include Spain, 12 Latin American countries, France and the USA. Its 2010 revenue was €1.66bn, while its OIBDA was €190m.
Eyes PT stake sale?
Separately, TelecomFinance understands that Telefonica is considering the sale of its stake in Portugal Telecom.
In January, Telefonica sold 150,000 shares in PT, reducing its stake to 1.998%.
Local newspaper El Economista cited market estimates suggesting that Telefonica could obtain around €200m (US$265m) for the stake. The publication speculated that Brazilian telco Oi, which currently holds 7.2% of PT, could be interested.
Divestment strategy
Telefonica reported net financial debt of €56.3bn (US$74.9bn) for 2011, but has been acting to cut the debt levels with a reduction to its planned dividend and an asset disposal strategy.
The company has already moved to divest tower assets in Latin America, agreeing to sell towers in Chile and Mexico to US towerco American Tower for a combined US$600m.
In February, the company sold a 13.23% stake in Hispasat, the European satellite operator, to Spanish infrastructure group abertis for €124m (US$165m).
But Telefonica’s CFO Angel Vila reportedly ruled out disposing of the company’s Czech, German or Mexican units, or its 9.6% stake in China Unicom.
Earlier in March, the CEO of Telefonica’s European operations, Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, also reportedly said that the company was not looking to dispose of any European operations.
