Tim attractive to Global Telecom in the event of a sale
Global Telecom would be interested in acquiring Tim Participacoes (Bovespa: TIMP3), Brazil’s second-largest mobile telephone service provider, in the event controlling shareholder Telecom Italia seeks to sell, Folha de S Paulo reported Saturday.
Company founder Naguib Sawiris said he would make a proposal if Tim were put up for sale, according to the Portuguese-language daily's interview with the Egyptian billionaire.
Sawiris said he has not made an offer for Rio de Janeiro-based Tim, which also owns a long-distance wire-line telephone company in Brazil, according to the report. Global Telecom was formed from the merger of Orascom with the Russian Vimpelcom. Orascom Telecom Holding was renamed Global Telecom Holding last September.
Tim could fetch up to EUR 20bn (USD 27bn) in a sale, according to analysts cited in the report. With a personal fortune of USD 2.5bn, Sawiris is the leader of a group of investors ready to buy the Brazilian company, the newspaper reported. The other investors weren’t identified in the report, which took up most of the editorial space on two pages in the second business section of Saturday's edition.
Sawiris told Brazilian telecommunications Minister Paulo Bernardo that he wanted to buy Tim when they met at the end of 2013, according to the interview.
Telefonica, the Spanish listed company, is the owner of Vivo, Brazil’s largest mobile telephone operator, and is an indirect shareholder in Tim, Folha said. Telefonica is an investor in Telecom Italia through a company called Telco, according to the report.
Telecom Italia will form a special committee to evaluate acquisition offers for Tim, according to a newswire report published two weeks ago. The Reuters report cited Telecom Italia Director Ben Ammar, who said there were no offers for Tim at that time.
Source Folha de Sao Paulo