Timor Leste government is reviewing a bid to acquire the 54.01% stake in Timor Telecom being sold by Brazilian telco Oi.Gastao de Sousa, Minister of Public Works, Transport and Telecommunications, told Portuguese news agency Lusa that the state, which…
Timor Leste government is reviewing a bid to acquire the 54.01% stake in Timor Telecom being sold by Brazilian telco Oi.
Gastao de Sousa, Minister of Public Works, Transport and Telecommunications, told Portuguese news agency Lusa that the state, which already owns 20.9% of the operator, would buy the interest “for security reasons”.
Several of Timor Telecom’s private shareholders are pushing for local investors or the government to buy Oi’s stake in the company, which is estimated to be worth between €90 and €110m.
At the end of February, a Fiji-based investment fund had reportedly submitted an offer to Oi for the stake.
Holding company TPT, which is 76% owned by Oi, holds a 54.01% in Timor Telecom. Other shareholders include Timor Leste government (20.59%), Macau VDT Operator Holdings (17.86%), local entrepreneur Julio Alfaro (4.49%) and PT Participações SGPS (3.05%).
Former monopoly Timor Telecom competes against Indonesia’s Telkomsel and Vietnam’s Telemor.
Following its ill-fated merger with Portuguese incumbent PT, highly-leveraged Oi is looking to divest non-core assets including its African operations, to reduce its debt pile and take part in Brazil’s telecoms consolidation process.
