America Movil reportedly received a boost as El Salvador’s antitrust authority said it would clear its local unit Claro’s proposed acquisition of Telefonica’s two business units in the country, subject to competition and consumer conditions.
El Salvador’s superintendent of competition said in a statement seen by Reuters the proposed acquisition, worth US$315 million, could generate “limits on competition”, as it set out some conditions Claro must meet before it is fully cleared.
Claro will be required to rule out future use of spectrum currently used by Movistar, until it is certified. Claro will also be required to keep all marketing strategies developed by Movistar for seven years, although it will be allowed to update pricing plans.
Delayed deal
America Movil’s Claro announced a deal in January 2019 to acquire Telefonica’s Movistar entity, which operates Telefonica Moviles El Salvador and Telefonica Multiservicios.
However, the deal has been delayed by regulatory issues. In September 2019, the country’s competition authority threw out America Movil’s application to complete the acquisition for not providing all the required information.
At the time, it had only conducted a preliminary assessment of whether all the information had been provided, and it was unable to move on to the second stage of assessing the impact of the transaction on competition and consumer welfare.
In a filing, America Movil said it was assessing the conditions. https://www.mobileworldlive.com
