A two-month battle to acquire Brazil service provider GVT may soon be coming to an end as France's Vivendi has one-upped Telefonica's rival bid for the company.
Vivendi's latest offer of $32.43 per share beats out Telefonica's previous $29.48 offer. Neither Telefonica nor GVT would comment on the latest news on the deal.
By purchasing 37.9 percent of GVT, Vivendi claims it has options to purchase another 19.6 percent of the service provider. As a result, Vivendi now has 57.5 percent control of GVT's voting share capital, which will enable it to make a tender offer for 100 percent of the Brazilian wireline operator.
Although GVT is a smaller competitive wireline carrier with only 2.6 million customers in Brazil, its focus on high-margin customers has made it an attractive target for European service providers looking to gain a bigger foothold in Brazil's burgeoning telecom market.
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- Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones has this article
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