The company’s chairman and IT mogul Naguib Sawiris expressed interest in the Brazilian telecommunications company Oi SA. Sawiris told Bloomberg news agency that the indebted company has a good potential once it gets a fresh capital injection and its debt is restructured. “Oi needs a shareholder with a strong telecoms background to solve their operational problems in addition to their financial ones,” Sawiris said.
The Brazilian wireless carrier filed for bankruptcy protection on $19bn in debt this week after failing to reach an agreement with creditors.
The company which is the most indebted phone company in Brazil had been approached by many interested investors as in February, Russia’s billionaire Mikhail Fridman withdrew a proposal to help finance a merger between Oi and Telecom Italia SpA’s Brazilian unit, Tim Participacoes SA. Worth mentioning is that in 2005 Sawiris acquires the Italian wireless carrier Wind in a €12.2bn deal and sold it six years later to VimpelCom, the carrier part-owned by Fridman.