Cantv shareholders to vote on retiring shares

Shareholders of Venezuela's Cantv (NYSE: VNT) will vote on December 2 whether to annul 139 million shares held in treasury, local papers reported. The shares were put in the treasury's trust after Cantv carried out a share buyback to fend off a hostile takeover bid by US power company AES (NYSE: AES) late 2001. According to Venezuelan law shares of publicly traded companies can not be held by treasury for more than two years. Shareholders are expected to prefer annulling the shares rather than placing them on the stock exchange or issuing them in the form of dividends. Cantv's main shareholders are US operator Verizon (NYSE: VZ) (28.5%) and Spain's Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) (6.9%), while 47.8% of shares are in circulation. The government also has 6.6% and Cantv workers have 10%.