ATLANTA-BellSouth Corp. and Telefonica Moviles S.A. said they have completed the transfer of BellSouth’s ownership interest in five wireless operations in Latin America. Telefonica Moviles has taken control of the operations of BellSouth’s properties in Colombia, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, effective immediately.
BellSouth will receive $ 2.5 billion for its interests in the five properties and will recognize a gain of approximately $385 million, or approximately 21 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2004.
The two companies announced in March that they had reached an agreement for BellSouth to sell its interests in 10 Latin American operations to Telefonica Moviles. The agreement provided a purchase price based on total enterprise value of $5.85 billion, which BellSouth plans to use to pay for its portion of Cingular Wireless’ acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. The sale of BellSouth’s interest in the operations in Ecuador, Guatemala and Panama closed earlier this month. The remaining two operations in Argentina and Chile are expected to close in the fourth quarter or early in 2005.
