The Bahamas has received final bids from three consortia for the country’s telecommunications company, the first of three state entities the government plans to privatise.
The preferred bidder will be named in three weeks.
JP Morgan Partners, a unit of JP Morgan Chase, and Citicorp Venture Capital, an arm of Citigroup, have joined two local companies to create the BahamaTel consortium, one of the bidders.
The others are Blue Telecommunications (Bahamas), in which Deutsche Telekom has an interest, and TransWorld Telecom Bahamas, a joint venture involving California-based TransWorld and local investors.
The bidders have each offered about $250m for a 49 per cent stake and management control in the company, according to industry sources. The government will retain the majority stake, eventually selling some to local individual and institutional investors.
Government officials said the privatisation had been attractive to investors because of the potential for expansion of services in the former British colony of 320,000 people.
The Bahamas telecoms provider has just more than 126,000 fixed-line subscribers – a penetration rate of 41 per cent.
Bahamas Telecommunications will continue as the exclusive provider of international, inter-island and local public-voice services over fixed networks, as well as for leased circuits for voice services for two years after the sale. The company will also continue to be the exclusive provider of cellular services for 12 months.
At June of last year, Bahamas Telecommunications had about 96,000 pre-paid and post-paid cellular subscribers – a penetration rate of 31 per cent. In 2002, group revenues were $226m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation were $100m.
By Canute James, The Financial Times
