The Economic Defense Administrative Council, Brazilian anti-monopoly entity, has approved Portugal Telecom’s acquisition of the 22% stake of the local telecommunications firm Oi. The regulating agency considered that no restriction should be applied on the operations and did not find any competitiveness-related issue.
The transaction had been carried out in July 2010 and was passed by the National Telecommunications Agency in April 2012. The Brazilian Treasury Economic Follow-up Secretary also supported said operation.
Together with the announcement of Oi stock control, Portugal Telecom announced its giving up on the Brazilian telecommunications firm Vivo’s stake, which used to run jointly with Telefónica. This move accounted for one of the conditions posed by the National Telecommunications Agency to pass Telecom Portugal’s stock acquisition in Oi.
The cable, DTH and IPTV Pay-TV operator Oi closed October with 651,382 subscribers. In 3Q2012, the firm added 47,911 new clients. In a market made up of 15,7 million Pay-TV subscribers, Oi comes third following Net and Sky and followed by Vivo, GVT, Algar and ViaCabo.
