Telefonica Moviles Argentina, S.A. subsidiary 100% owned by Telefonica, the Spanish telecom multinational, will decide at a shareholders’ meeting that will be held on April 16th if the company starts trading as a public company in the stock exchanges or markets that the Board of Directors of the company consider as a right election.
This is contained in the point 11 of the agenda for the call for the ordinary and extraordinary General Shareholders’ Meeting communicated to the Argentine National Securities Commission on March 25th, 2018.
The aforementioned agenda foresees the approval of the necessary amendment to the Bylaws of Telefónica Argentina that will allow the company to go public.Even the possible modification of the nominal value of the share is included in the agenda.
The Assembly will also decide on an increase in share capital to five times the current; also on the reduction of the term for executing preferential subscription rights and accretion rights.
In order to carry out all these actions and others included in the same agenda, the Shareholders Meeting will decide on the power delegation in the Board of Directors and the authorization for the Board to sub-delegate the exercise thereof.
The search for financing in the stock market could help the Group to reduce once more its debt level. Telefónica closed 2017 with a reduction of its debt in € 4,400 million to the € 44,230 million net debt. José María Álvarez Pallete (Executive President of Telefónica) said during the presentation of the annual accounts 2017 that the Group has debt maturity covered during the next two years, with an average life of the debt at 8.08 years (compared to 6 , 35 years in December 2016).
Telefónica Argentina’s IPO could also, among other things, help finance the investments and bids for spectrum that the Group could plan to carry out.
Grupo Telefónica achieved a consolidated net profit of € 3,132 million in 2017, 32.2% more than in 2016, while Telefónica Hispanoamérica closed 2017 with strong organic growth in OIBDA (operating result before depreciation) to the total of€ 3,538 million. This more than offsets the negative impact of the depreciation of some currencies in the region, achieving a solid year-on-year growth at + 1.8% last fiscal year.
Image on the headline.- José María Álvarez Pallete (Executive President of Telefónica). © Telefónica
