The Latin American telecommunications company spun out from media billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Global has made an approach for rival Millicom International Cellular in a deal that could boost its reach in emerging markets.
Luxembourg-headquartered Millicom, a provider of cable and mobile services in Latin America and Africa, confirmed in a statement it had received an offer from Liberty Latin America for all the shares in the company.
Although the news helped push its share price higher, Millicom said there was no certainty a transaction would materialise, and that the proposal from LLA was preliminary, highly conditional and non-binding, without providing further details.
Millicom, via its Tigo brand, counts more than 53m mobile subscribers across 13 countries in Latin America and Africa. The company reported net income of $85m on revenue of $4.13bn in 2017, its most recent full-year.
The company’s Nasdaq-listed stock closed 4.9 per cent higher to $70.55 on Monday following the news, giving it a market capitalisation of close to $7bn. Earlier in the day, the company’s Stockholm-listed shares closed 3.9 per cent lower.
LLA launched as an independent publicly traded company in January last year after completing a split from Liberty Global. It has operations in more than 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, providing services to some 6.6m homes and 5.3m mobile subscribers. The company reported a net loss of $778m on revenue of $3.59bn in 2017
LLA shares finished 1.6 per cent higher at $16.90, giving the company a market capitalisation of nearly $3.1bn.
Peter Wells
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