Bidding war for Portugal Telecom heats up
Portugal Telecom's net profit surged 46.6 percent last year to 331 million euros.
LISBON (AFP) - Two investment funds have joined in a bidding war for Portugal Telecom, with a joint offer of 7.07 billion euros ($8.8 billion) to buy most of its assets from Brazilian operator Oi.
The offer by Apax Partners and Bain Capital, which was announced on Wednesday by Oi, came just over a week after French group Altice launched a bid of 7.03 billion euros for the same assets.
Like Altice s bid, the investment funds offer excludes Portugal Telecom s business in Africa and almost 900 million euros in debt owed by Rioforte -- a company of the troubled Espirito Santo group.
A Luxembourg court had last month decided that Rioforte, the main holding company of Santo s non-financial assets, would be liquidated.
Oi and Portugal Telecom had only announced their merger just over a year ago. But the marriage has soured over Portugal Telecom s loan in April to Rioforte.
Meanwhile, Isabel dos Santos -- an Angola businesswoman and daughter of the country s president -- launched a separate bid to buy the holding company of Portugal Telecom which in turn owns about a quarter of Oi.
Her bid of 1.35 euros per share values Portugal Telecom at 1.2 billion euros, and was dismissed by Brazil s Oi as "unacceptable" and "ill-timed".
Portugal Telecom s net profit surged 46.6 percent last year to 331 million euros after it hived off its participation in a company in Macau, China.
