America Movil’s $905 million bid to acquire its rival Nextel Brazil has been cleared by the country’s antitrust body CADE (Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Economica).
Nextel’s parent firm NII Holdings announced its intention to sell in August 2018. Various potential buyers were mooted at the time, including AI Brazil, Telecom Italia and Telefonica. In March this year, America Movil announced it would place a bid for the unit.
NII Holdings will cease operations following the sale; it divested a number of minority stakes in other businesses during bankruptcy proceedings, and will have no further assets once Nextel Brazil has been acquired.
Last month, America Movil announced that it planned to invest BRL30 billion ($7.3 billion) in expanding its Brazilian operations. The addition of Nextel’s 3.5 million subscribers will significantly boost its footprint, in line with its Latin American expansion strategy - in January this year, it acquired Telefonica’s El Salvador and Guatemala units for $648 million.
