Telefónica moves closer to exiting yet another LatAm market

Telefónica took another step forward in divesting assets in non-key Latin American markets as it obtained clearance to sell its El Salvador Movistar subsidiary.

The 144mn-euro (US$163mn) sale to UK-based investment fund General International Telecom Limited was announced in October.

In a statement, El Salvador's competition watchdog (SC) said the deal does not require antirust authorization since the buyer does not have any existing operations in the country.

Telefónica had reached an agreement to sell its El Salvador operations to América Móvil for 277mn euros in January 2019, but was forced to pull out of the deal in September 2020 due to the strict antitrust-related restrictions imposed by SC.

The mobile market in El Salvador is led by América Móvil’s CTE-Telecom (Claro El Salvador), Millicom (Tigo), Telefónica and Digicel.

At the end of last year, the market had 23,545km of optical fiber and 9.94mn mobile lines in service.

Telefónica has already sold its operations in Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua and more recently, in Costa Rica. With the El Salvador exit, all its Central American assets have been divested.