Telephone is negotiating with the US venture capital fund KKR the sale of a majority stake in fiber optics in Peru, according to Expansión.
It is worth mentioning that the relationship between Telefónica and KKR is not recent, given that the Spanish company already transferred 60% of On-Net Fibra in Chile and Colombia in 2021. Those subsidiaries were valued at $1 billion and $500 million, respectively.
However, KKR is not the only candidate that is still alive in the competitive process coordinated by Banco Santander, although it is one of the main favorites given its history of alliances with the group chaired by José María Álvarez-Pallete.
The auction began at the beginning of the year and would already be very close to being resolved. In this way, a new agreement between Telefónica and KKR could be finalized.
Credentials
On the other hand, PangeaCo is a company established in March 2020 by Telefónica in Peru to complement its broadband development strategy in this geography through the deployment of fiber optics throughout the country.
It is the sole wholesale fiber operator in Peru, which signed a concession for this purpose in January 2021 for a renewable 20-year term.
PangeaCo, which started operations in January 2022, is expected to serve some 4 million urban households in 2024. To do this, Telefónica needs guarantee partners such as KKR or other funds that allow it to face a larger investment.
Likewise, the Spanish group already launched a similar initiative in the Andean country in 2019 in alliance with Facebook, IDB Invest and CAF (the development bank for Latin America), when it launched the Internet for Everyone (IPT) vehicle with the goal of bringing 4G mobile networks to rural areas of Peru.
However, the valuation to which Telefónica aspires for PangeaCo has not transpired, although it may reach several hundred million euros, in line with the operations in Chile and Colombia, whose size is similar, with 3.5 and 4.3 million homes. respectively, to that of the Peruvian subsidiary.
