The new Hispam unit that Telefonica will create to hold its Latin American business (apart from Brazil) and attract investors has a total market value of EUR 13.5 billion, equivalent to around 14 percent of the group’s assets, reports Expansion, citing an assessment by Goldman Sachs. The Spanish group has a total business value of EUR 95.1 billion, including a EUR 40.8 billion debt pile, and last week announced a plan to spin-off and review its Latin American units, with the exception of Brazil, with a view to “modulating the exposure to the region, while creating the conditions to maximise its value, both via growth, consolidation and potential corporate operations."
The report said most of Telefonica's assets in Latin America are located in the south of the region – namely Chile (EUR 3.0 billion), Argentina (EUR 2.4 billion), Peru (EUR 2.3 billion) and Uruguay (EUR 450 million) – while in the north the presence is somewhat smaller, ranging from Mexico (EUR 1.9 billion), Colombia (EUR 1.8 billion), Ecuador (EUR 892 million) and Central America (EUR 607 million) to Venezuela (EUR 15 million). The company divested most of its Central American operations to America Movil and Millicom earlier this year.
In its new action plan to generate over EUR 2 billion a year in additional revenues from 2022 onwards, Telefonica said its four key markets of Spain, Brazil, Germany and the UK accounted for more than 82 percent of the group’s operating income before depreciation and amortisation (OIBDA) in 2018, up from 78 percent the previous year, and almost 76 percent of revenues.
