Liberty Latin America held talks with Telefonica over a potential acquisition of the latter’s businesses in Colombia and Ecuador, Bloomberg reported, as it looks to continue a recent acquisition spree.
The news publication noted talks on a deal were at an early stage and Liberty Latin America was not the only party interested in buying Telefonica’s various units in the region.
Reports of a potential buy of Telefonica’s Movistar operations in Ecuador and Colombia comes a month after Liberty Latin America completed the purchase of two units from AT&T, and follows a deal with Telefonica to buy its business in Costa Rica.
Although not formally put up for sale, the future of Telefonica’s presence in the region has been the subject of speculation since it announced plans to spin-off the vast majority of its Latin American operation into a standalone division in 2019.
Telefonica’s move is part of a massive restructure of the whole company designed to focus on its core markets in Europe and its business in Brazil.
In addition to creating a standalone Latin American business, it also announced a review of each composite business unit.
Prior to unveiling its restructure plans it had already offloaded some of its units in Central and South America to Millicom and America Movil, leaving it with businesses in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Earlier this year, Telefonica announced the sale of its Costa Rican unit to Liberty Latin America for $425 million after a deal to sell the business to Millicom fell through.
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