Eight ISPs in the Brazilian Northeastern states of Paraiba, Pernambuco, Ceara, and Rio Grande do Norte have merged to create Proxxima Telecomunicacoes, with 95,000 subscribers and 350,000 households connected to fibre.
The new ISP plans to compete with big names in the broadband internet market including Brisanet, Claro, Oi, and Vivo, and expect to end the year with 130,000 broadband internet subscribers. It has set a goal of 400,000 subscribers in five years.
According to Brazilian newspapers, Proxxima Telecomunicacoes is the result of the merger of ISPs Ondanet, Netmark, CPnet, Datacommection, Enteriw, Netjat, Netonline and Toolsnet.
The operator plans to issue debentures (debt bonds) to the market as early as 2022 and expects to make an initial public offering (IPO) on the stock exchange in 2023. “We are closely following the operations currently in progress, whether the IPO of Desktop, Unifique, and Brisanet, as well as the M&A ones,” a report quoted CEO of the new company, Leonardo Gomes as saying.
Gomes says that other acquisitions will be announced soon, as well as the second wave of expansion of the network to bigger cities. He points out that, with the purchase, the cash return is fast, while in the construction of a network, this doesn't happen in less than 26 months.
