El Salvador’s antitrust regulator Superintendencia de Competencia has rejected America Movil’s request to acquire Telefonica’s operations in the country for the second time, once again describing the deal as “inadmissible”. The regulator said its new decision was issued on 26 August, some four months after its first rejection, and that it has repeated its demand for more background information on the transaction, as required by the country’s competition law, a request that wasn’t heeded by America Movil the first time round.
However, the regulator is once again allowing the Mexican giant to file a fresh application to acquire Telefonica’s asset on submission of the required documentation. Telefonica reached an agreement to sell its Guatemala and El Salvador assets to America Movil for a total of EUR 570 million back in January. The parties agreed that Telefonica El Salvador had an enterprise value of EUR 277 million and had initially expected the deal to close by September.
