Telefónica Outbids Vivendi For Brazil's Gvt

 

Spain's Telefónica is to make an all-cash tender offer of US$3.7 billion to acquire control of Brazilian telecoms company GVT, trumping a bid by French media group Vivendi.

 

Telefónica's fixed-line subsidiary Telesp announced the bid on 7 October, one month after Vivendi agreed an "amicable tender offer" of US$2.9 billion supported by GVT's management and two largest shareholders.

 

In a regulatory filing the Spanish company, which already controls 30 per cent of Brazil's fixed-line and mobile telephone markets, said it would offer 48 reais per share for at least 51 per cent of GVT, compared with the 42 reais per share offered by the French bidder.

 

Vivendi has yet to make a counter-bid. CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy has been known to withdraw from deals he deems too expensive, having walked away in July from talks with Kuwaiti telecoms group Zain to acquire its African assets.

 

Neither bid will succeed unless GVT removes a series of poison-pill clauses from its statutes, including one that requires any tender offer to be at least 25 per cent higher than GVT's best share price for the past year.

 

Currently controlled by Israeli investor Shaul Shani's Swarth Group and Global Village Telecom (Holland), GVT is a fixed-line and broadband service operator based in Curitiba, Paraná state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

•      Barbosa Müssnich & Aragão

 

Partner Luciano Puccini Medeiros

 

 

•      Allen & Overy LLP

 

Partner Thomas Abbondante in New York

 

 

 

•      Souza, Cescon, Barrieu & Flesch Advogados

 

Partners Marcos Rafael Flesch, Fabíola C L Cammarota de Abreu and Carlos Augusto Junqueira and associate Tatiana Bonatti

 

 

•      Clifford Chance LLP

 

Partners Marcus Billam and Gilles Lebreton, counsel Frederic Jungels and associate Alexandre Poupard in Paris, and partner Anthony Oldfield in São Paulo

 

SP        

 

(Latin Lawyer 12.10.2009)

 

(Notícia na Íntegra)