Telefónica appears to have put a significant portion of its future fiber deployments in various countries in the hands of venture capital. The operator announced yesterday that it had signed the sale of 60% of its fiber optic subsidiary in Colombia to the US venture capital giant KKR, a partner of the company in various similar operations, for $200 million (about 180 million euros). In addition, Telefónica Colombia will have access to outcome considerations of up to an additional $200 million.
The telco explained that the operation is part of the group’s “active portfolio management policy”, which is based on liquidating non-strategic assets to reduce leverage. In this sense, Laura Abasolo, General Director of Finance and Control at Telefónica and President of Telefónica Hispanoamérica, noted that the company continues to proactively manage assets in Latin America, creating value and adjusting exposure in the region.
This new company will operate in Colombia as a wholesale neutral company, ready to operate and accelerate local fiber optic network deployments, as well as provide wholesale access to the FTTH business to all telecom service providers in Colombia who in turn serve their end customers.
countries
In any case, Telefónica has already made it clear that this is its model for investing in fiber in many countries. It is that the communications have carried out other similar operations in Latin America and Europe in recent times. During 2021, the operator closed the sale of 60% of the share capital of its fiber investment company in Chile to KKR itself, valued at approximately 800 million euros. The Spanish group said that with this operation it will reduce its debts by 400 million.
Almost in parallel, Telefónica and Canadian financial group Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) have reached an agreement to build, develop and operate a neutral and independent fiber optic wholesale network in Brazil, through FiBrasil Infraestrutura e Fibra Ótica SA (Fibrasil).
Each partner now owns 50% of the capital of the new company, which plans to expand fiber optics to nearly six million real estate units in 2024, Telefónica Brasil indicated in a recent investor presentation.
Also in Peru, the operator is seeking a similar agreement to enter partners in its domestic fiberboard. Indeed, in the presentation of accounts for the first half of 2021, the company indicated that it was in negotiations to sell part of its fiber network.
In Germany, Telefónica began spreading fiber through the investment vehicle UGG, in which Allianz participated. The goal is to spread this infrastructure to 2.2 million households, mainly in rural areas.
Finally, Telefónica and Liberty Global are also considering a similar option in the UK, and the entry of a financial partner into their fiber business, to accelerate network deployments of their investor company Virgin Media O2, which competes with BT.
New alliance with IBM
conventions. Telefónica has expanded its agreements with IBM. The operator indicated that he chose a hybrid architecture Multimedia To host your business applications. Thus, it will deploy the platform based on Red Hat OpenShift and IBM’s hybrid cloud technology.
Uses. The phone indicated that it is already migrating and developing applications that support Telefónica España, and at the same time it will allow it to continue developing new services for its customers, which will soon see the light. The use of this technology reinforces Telefónica’s commitment to containers that has already started with the Cloud Garden service, and allows it to offer a service solution developed on Red Hat Openshift to its corporate clients.
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