The Portuguese shareholders – merger partners of Brazil’s Oi – are now due to meet again in Lisbon on January 22 with the same agenda of deciding whether to sell the Portuguese assets of the combined company to Patrick Drahi’s Altice for $9.2 billion.
The Altice deal is a further complication for the Portugal Telecom/Oi merger, which hit problems last year when Rioforte – part of the bankrupt Espirito Santo Bank – defaulted on a loan from Portugal Telecom, which the latter had not disclosed to Oi.
Last week, Portugal Telecom SGPS chairman, Antonio Menezes Cordeiro, said that if a deal with Altice were to materialise, the merger agreement between Portugal Telecom and Oi would become invalid.
Portuguese security regulator CMVM suspended the trading of Portugal Telecom shares on Friday pending yesterday’s decision, but trading has now resumed.
