Brazilian operator Oi is planning to divest its mobile tower and real estate portfolio across the country to further cut its debt after closing the sale of Portugal Telecom to French telecom holding company Altice. In an interview with the Financial Times, the company’s CEO Bayard Gontijo said Oi would need to take further steps including asset sales to restore its balance sheet even after raising EUR 7.4 billion from the Portugal Telecom sale. He said the group was in talks with the Brazilian government to obtain approval to sell real estate as well as 1,000 mobile towers in the country. “We have to do other things to deal with the leverage and avoid anything drastic,” he said, adding that “we are selling our call-centre company. We own 7,000 properties but we are not a real estate company. We are working on getting the approval [to sell]”.
The Oi CEO also suggested the company would be looking to sell the African units acquired as part of the Portugal Telecom deal. “We are trying now to establish a dialogue in Africa,” he said. “There is a good possibility of selling this. It’s not an easy asset disposal but we think its achievable.” The company’s net debt stood at BRL 33 billion in the first quarter of 2015, up from BRL 31 billion in the year-earlier quarter.
