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LatAm: Report ― NII Holdings to sell Nextel Chile, Argentina

NII Holdings is reportedly selling its Nextel operations in Chile and Argentina. According to the Argentinean newspaper La Nación, two Argentinian businessmen, Matías Garfunkel and Sergio Szpolski, the owners Grupo Veintitres, are close to buying the mobile phone service for about $250 million.
Last year, NII Holdings agreed to sell its Peruvian operations to Entel (Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones S.A.) for approximately $400 million. The move was expected since NII had already announced it would focus on its largest markets in the region: Mexico and Brazil. A public relations representative for NII Holdings told RCR Wireless News that the company cannot comment on market rumors or speculation.
In February 2013, NII Holdings said it would continue to support its operations in Peru, Chile and Argentina, while also exploring strategic options for these markets, such as partnerships, service arrangements and asset sales to maximize the value of those businesses and generate additional liquidity.
Mexican telecom regulations: América Móvil has created a strategic committee to assess its various options to respond to the new Mexican regulatory framework as well as potential opportunities arising from the legislation. The telcom claims it is focused on “continuing with the development of the telecommunications sector and providing services with high quality, state-of-the-art technologies and under best conditions.” The committee’s recommendations will be made available to América Movil’s board of directors and potentially presented at shareholder meetings for discussion.
In March 2014, the Federal Telecommunications Institute determined that América Móvil and its subsidiaries operated as a preponderant economic agent in the telecommunications sector since the companies accounted for 61.8% of the aggregate number of subscribers in the sector as of June 2013.
Tower sales: SBA has entered into a definitive agreement with certain subsidiaries of Brazil’s Oi to acquire 1,641 wireless sites in Brazil for approximately U.S.$527 million at current exchange rates. When the transaction closes, Oi will enter into a long-term lease with SBA with monthly payments for antenna space on each of these sites. The transaction, which is subject to customary conditions, is expected to close by the end of this year. This transaction was exclusively negotiated and is similar to SBA’s acquisition of 2,007 sites from Oi, a deal which closed on March 31, 2014.
More Latin American news:

  • Viber announced that the World Cup boosted the use of its mobile messaging service. The company said that during the first ten days of the tournament, Viber saw a 40% increase in the total volume of exchanged messages. During the games, the increase climbed 1,500%.
  • On Telecom launched Internet broadband services using LTE in five more cities in the state of São Paulo.
  • ZTE won a contract from Wind Telecom to build the first 4G TD-LTE network in the Dominican Republic.
  • In the Latin American region, mobile devices account for 15.24% of the total transactions at MercadoLivre, a website dedicated to e-commerce and online auctions.

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ABOUT AUTHOR

Roberta Prescott
Roberta Prescott
Editor, [email protected] Roberta Prescott is responsible for Latin America reporting news and analysis, interviewing key stakeholders. Roberta has worked as an IT and telecommunication journalist since March 2005, when she started as a reporter with InformationWeek Brasil magazine and its website IT Web. In July 2006, Prescott was promoted to be the editor-in-chief, and, beyond the magazine and website, was in charge for all ICT products, such as IT events and CIO awards. In mid-2010, she was promoted to the position of executive editor, with responsibility for all the editorial products and content of IT Mídia. Prescott has worked as a journalist since 1998 and has three journalism prizes. In 2009, she won, along with InformationWeek Brasil team, the press prize 11th Prêmio Imprensa Embratel. In 2008, she won the 7th Unisys Journalism Prize and in 2006 was the editor-in-chief when InformationWeek Brasil won the 20th media award Prêmio Veículos de Comunicação. She graduated in Journalism by the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, has done specialization in journalism at the Universidad de Navarra (Spain, 2003) and Master in Journalism at IICS – Universidad de Navarra (Brazil, 2010) and MBA – Executive Education at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.