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Strategies & Market Trends : Telebras (TBH) & Brazil -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1211)	3/13/1998 4:14:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22640

Brazil to prequalify Telebras bidders in April Reuters, Friday, March 13, 1998 at 16:09 BRASILIA, March 13 (Reuters) - Brazil in April plans to prequalify companies interested in the privatization of federal telecoms holding Telebras (SAO:TEL_.P), officials said Friday. "The idea is to register them and find out how many are interested," said a government spokesman, quoting Communications Minister Sego Mott. The spokesman said Brasilia was sticking to its plans for a mid-year sale of the federal telecommunications giant. Earlier on Friday, however, Brazil's Finance Minister Pedro Malan suggested there might be a delay in Telebras' sale. "The ideal thing will be to keep the original timetable, but I don't think that a slippage of one or two months will make a major difference for a program that is one of the largest privatizations in the world," Malan told Reuters Financial Television in an interview in New York. Analysts have also said the timetable is tight for a sale in June or July, but they too did not expect that a one- or two-month delay would have a serious impact on the sale. Touted as the largest privatization in Latin America's history, the sale has drawn interest from most of the major global telecommunications companies. It could rake in more than $20 billion. The spokesman quoted Mott as saying the prequalification was meant to streamline the sale, but was a "bureaucratic process" and unlikely to cause court delays. According to the spokesman, Mott also said prequalified foreign investors will be given access to the technical and operating details of the company in late April or early May. The minister also announced that Brazil plans to publish in April yet another set of tender rules for a license to operate B Band frequency cellular services in the vast Amazon region. The government failed in two prior attempts to draw bids for a concession to operate in the so-called B Band area No. 8, which includes the states of Amazonas, Amapa, Roraima, Para and Maranhao. Mott also said the government might exempt B Band bidders who have bids on five concessions from having to raise these bids by 20 percent on April 7 to adjust for inflation. The ministry is looking at legal options to avoid the increase out of fear that some bidders may simply opt out of the tender. The B Band process has been delayed by court challenges since September, but officials hope a high court may remove the last obstacle to the privatizations when it meets March 25. "If the Superior Court of Justice rules on March 25, the government will move as fast as it can to complete the privatizations before April 7," the spokesman said. james.craig@reuters.com)) Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service