Tough Times Ahead for Mexico's Carlos Slim Jude Webber - FT.com
go to original May 20, 2014

Slim controls almost all of Mexico’s telephone communication infrastructure. (Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg)

Carlos Slim, Mexico’s telecoms tycoon, is both highly strategic and highly pragmatic.

Already fuming over his country’s telecoms reform, which is set to force him to offer free interconnection under new asymmetric rules, he now faces a former friend – AT&T – turning competitor as it buys DirecTV.

Shares in América Móvil, Slim’s company, have suffered this year (they are down more than 17 per cent since the end of December). So it might not look like a great time for AT&T to sell its 8 per cent stake in América Móvil, as it has announced it will, to sweeten regulators.

But then, as one analyst who asked not to be named noted, the share price could fall farther, making sooner rather than later perhaps a better time to sell. Given the tougher operating environment, he added: “Our base case is that we’re not very excited about América Móvil.”

With regulation heating up both in Mexico and Latin America, Slim has looked abroad, most recently to Austria. But he remains a formidable player in Latin America.

Read the rest at FT.com

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