Movicom

active

Movicom-BellSouth changed its name from Compania de Radiocomunicaciones Moviles SA in 1999. It is one of four companies competing for the market of basic, long distance and mobile telephone services in Argentina. The company secured its domestic and international long distance license as well as its local service license in 1998 as part of opening up the sector to a managed competition. In 1999, Movicom was awarded, through a competitive bidding process, a 40MHz PCS license for the Northern region of the country for US $50 million and a 40MHz PCS license for the Southern region of the country for $40 million. The company paid US$ 39.6 million the first year and plans to pay US$ 26.67 million the second year and US$ 23.9 million the third year to complete license fee obligations (totalling US$90.23 million). Currently the company is competing nationally with Compania de Telefonos del Interior, Telefonica Comunicaciones Personales (Telefonica de Argentina), and Compania de Comunicaciones Personales del Interior (Telecom Argentina). The company main shareholders are BellSouth (65%), Motorola (25%) and BGH SA(10%). The company, which started its commercial operations in 1989, had 1.6 million customers by the end of 2000. In the end of 2004 and beginning of 2005, Spanish company Telefonica Moviles acquired the Latin American assets of BellSouth. Because the final tranfer of Movicom assets was not completed until January 2005, the merging of Movicom and Telefonica's other mobile assets in Argentina did not occur until 2005. Telfonica Moviles, S.A. completed the acquisition of all of BellSouth's mobile operators in Latin America with the purchase of 100% of Movicom, BellSouth's wireless operator in Argentina, for an enterprise value of $988 million. Movicom invested US$ 750 million between 1989 to 1998, US$ 181 million in 1999, and US$ 228 million in 2000. 2003 investment information obtained by dividing BellSouth's 2003 total Latin American capital expenditure by 2003 capacity for each subsidiary. None