Telefónica del Perú (TDP) today has a new owner and one of the questions that have arisen is what will happen to users and the telecommunications market, where it appears as one of the leading companies.
The company now no longer belongs to Telefónica Hispanoamérica SA (Telefónica Hispam), but to Integra Tecinternational Inc (Integra Tec), which bought its shareholding for S/3.7 million.
This transaction occurred almost two months after TDP submitted a request to benefit from an ordinary bankruptcy procedure (PCO) before the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI) with the purpose of restructuring its financial obligations.
The new shareholder, who has experience in the sector in Latin America, has already advanced that they will maintain the focus to guarantee the uninterrupted benefit of services, so that the more than 13 million customers that currently have TDP in various areas of Peru are not harmed.
Prepared market
It is not the first time that in Peru the purchase of a company that offers the telecommunications service is made. One of the most recent stories was held in 2013 when Entel Chile acquired Nextel Peru for US $ 400 million, after the matrix of the latter, located in the United States, declared bankruptcy.
Although Nextel was mainly linked to the business market, with the entry of Entel, the company managed to gain greater participation in the mobile phone market.
Under this experience, the supervisory agency for private investment in telecommunications (Osiptel) He sent a statement in which he announced that, with the new sale, the quality and efficiency of the provision of the services “as proceeded in similar operations will be guaranteed.”
Meanwhile, in statements to Peru21, the president of the regulator, Rafael Muente, said that “nothing should change in the market” with the recent transaction.
“From our perspective nothing should change, as it did not change when Tim sold to Claro, Telmex sold to AT&T or Nextel sold to Entel. If there is no market concentration, nothing should happen,” he said.
And today the market is much broader, and with a participation of the most varied companies than 10 years ago, except in the case of pay television, which went from 37.73% to 51.78%.
For example, as can be seen in the picture, with Punku figures in Osiptel, in 2014, Telefónica had a 55.62% participation leading the market. Today it occupies the second place with 26.57% of the cake.
In the case of the fixed Internet, the company has also lost market share in a decade, since, having 90.75% of the total, today it reaches 33.05%.
Scenarios in sight
In this regard, the main partner of Reaño & Linares Financial Advisors, Martín Reaño Azpilcueta, said that various panoramas can be presented. One of them, for example, is that the new owner of the company manages to restructure TDP and this remains an important player in the country.
“The second scenario is that you integrate Tec, after a few months, generate the box and liquid the company. The third is that you integrate an agreement in the bankruptcy process in which it is telephone, you have a plan and then sell it at a higher price than it bought it,” he said.
In that sense, he said that if TDP disappears, the participation he has today in the market would be distributed among the remaining companies. However, he clarified that if it is kept afloat, it would continue with the same quota and no one would change in the sector, “unless you will have a player with quality technologies and standards according to the industry.”
Meanwhile, Álvaro Castro Lora, partner of Damma Legal Advisors, said that for previous experiences in this type of process it is likely that, given uncertainty, many users choose to change operator until they have greater certainty.
“The company’s strategy should not only go through something legal and financial, but also for a media issue and what you want to convey to its customers and users. Until now, beyond the statement, it has not been said more,” he said.
He also said that now we have to wait to know if the company formally enters the Indecopi bankruptcy process. If so, he would have to negotiate with his creditors the restructuring of the company.
“These creditors can designate a new administration in the company or can also agree on the liquidation of the assets. That is delicate because the most important TDP assets are their clients and the concession granted by the State granted for fixed telephony,” he added.
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