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

To: Weekapaug who wrote (6308)	8/4/1998 10:31:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 22640

Hi Ken... I have no idea where we're going, but I guess I lean towards some more selling out of the gate tomorrow with a mid to late day turn around. The key short term question in my mind is when they're listing the babies. Several stories and analyst reports (including Merrill) have suggested they'd list this week. I believe that even Barros's latest comment on the issue suggested very soon. I do plan on averaging August calls down tomorrow. Hope you're right about that full moon theory. sf

To: Weekapaug who wrote (6308)	8/4/1998 10:37:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

FOCUS-Brazil signs over Telebras to new owners Reuters, Tuesday, August 04, 1998 at 22:09 By William Schomberg BRASILIA, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The Brazilian government signed over control of Brazil's Telebras (NYSE:TBR)(SAO:TELB4) telecommunications system to its new private owners Tuesday, the final formality after last week's spectacular $19 billion auction of the company. "An era...ends today. But it is with joy, not sadness that we are beginning a new, more successful stage than the Telebras period," Communications Minister Luiz Carlos Mendonca de Barros told the winners of last week's Telebras auction. He then handed a check for 8.8 billion reais ($7.6 billion) to a finance ministry official for deposit in the National Treasury. The check was the combined first installment of the $19 billion offered for Telebras' 12 subsidiaries by top telecom companies from Europe, the United States and Canada and by their international and Brazilian partners. As the executives chatted in a smattering of languages, new details of how Brazil's long-underfunded telecommunications sector will function were still emerging. Spain's Telefonica (MADRID:TEF) said it planned to double within four years the number of lines of Telesp (SAO:TLSP3), the fixed-line company covering busy Sao Paulo state which it bought along with partners for $4.98 billion last week. In a statement issued in Madrid, the Spanish company said it expected Telesp, its latest investment in Latin America, would quadruple net profit by 2002. Analysts who took part in a conference call with Telefonica said the company planned to invest $11 billion in Telesp over the next ten years. In Lisbon, Portugal Telecom (LIS:PTCO) said the nearly $3 billion it spent on a cellular firm in Sao Paulo state and a share in Telesp along with Telefonica was worth it, despite causing a 15 percent fall in the company's share price. "Certainly, it is going to have a negative impact (on short-term profits). But we know very well what we have bought. It is a sign of confidence in the future," said Portugal Telecom Francisco Murteira Nabo. In Brasilia, the all-Brazilian Telemar group which bought another of Telebras' three fixed-line companies -- Tele Norte Leste -- said it would seek a "strategic" foreign partner to make it more competitive. "The entry of our future partner will not just mean the entry of Telemar into the world market, but will also give it strength in the financial market," said Carlos Jereissati, president of La Fonte Participacoes investment firm, a member of Telemar. Shares in Telerj (SAO:TERJ3) and Telemig (SAO:TMGR3), two of the 16 state-level fixed-line companies covered by Tele Norte Leste plunged in trading immediately after the privatization as investors fretted over the absence of an experienced telecoms operator in Telemar. But the share prices recovered Friday amid rumors of a possible foreign investor in the group. Late Monday, Brazil's National Development Bank (BNDES) and Telemar officials agreed that the bank's investment wing would buy a 25 percent stake in Telemar for $686.8 million. Of that stake, 15 percent will be sold to Telemar's future foreign partner which will probably be a telephone operator, Jereissati said. Earlier Tuesday, Telemar said in a newspaper announcement it would invest $8.6 billion in five years in Tele Norte Leste. An official from Telecom Italia (MILAN:TIT), which carried off the remaining fixed-line company, Tele Centro Sul, and two cellular units at the privatization auction, said the company would announce plans for its new investments in Milan on Wednesday. william.schomberg@reuters.com))