Companhia Telefonica de Ribeirao Preto (Merged with Telesp)

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Companhia Telefonica de Ribeirao Preto (Ceterp) was a fixed phone company that provided local and long distance services in the municipality of Ribeirao Preto in the state of Sao Paulo. Ceterp also operated the band A for cellular phone services within its concession area. The company was one of the four Brazilian telecom companies that did not belong to the Telebras' system which was privatized in July 1998. The other three independent telecom operating companies were Companhia Riograndense de Telecomunicacoes (CRT) the municipality-owned Servico Municipal de Comunicacoes Telefonicas de Londrina-Parana (Sercomtel) and the privately owned Companhia de Telefones do Brazil Central (CTBC). Ceterp was partially privatized in January 1996 when a 40% stake of its voting stock was sold for US$49 million (R$50.5 million) to a group of Brazilian pension funds (Telos, Sistel, and Previ). In 1999, Telesp acquired 96% of the voting shares from both the municipal government and pension funds for around US$255 (R$420) million. Telesp was planning to buy the remaining stake in Ceterp. In the transaction, Telesp had also acquired Ceterp Celular, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ceterp created in 1998 to operate mobile cellular services. Telesp would be required to sell Ceterp's cellular phone operations (Ceterp Celular) in 2000 to comply with Anatel's regulations. Ceterp had 175,000 fixed terminals and 61,000 mobile cellular terminals by December 1999. In November of 2000 Ceterp Celular was acquired by Telesp Celular from Companhia Telefonica de Ribeirao Preto SA. Ceterp Celular was merged into Telesp Celular and ceased to exist. In the transaction, Portugal Telecom and Spain's Telefonica split their respective participation in Telesp and Telesp Celular so that Portugal Telecom would hold assets only in mobile phone services and Telefonica would hold assets only in wireline phone services. None None