BT Met With Mexico Regulators as Competition Opens Up

By Patricia Laya

BT Group Plc (BT/A) executives met with Mexican telecommunications regulators last week to discuss how to take advantage of new laws in the country that are designed to promote competition and foreign investment.
BT’s chief operations officer in the Americas, Jennifer Artley, as well as its regional country manager for Mexico and Central America, Jorge Marchena, met with Federal Telecommunications Institute President Gabriel Contreras and other commissioners Nov. 20, according to a disclosure about Contreras’s agenda on the regulator’s website. They discussed growth perspectives and timing to obtain permits that would best take advantage of the new regulations, according to the disclosure.
The $51 billion U.K. phone company has been eyeing options for growth and is in preliminary talks to buy either Telefonica SA’s O2 unit or EE, the joint venture owned by
Orange SA and Deutsche Telekom AG. Meanwhile, Mexico is opening its telecommunications market to new entrants as laws passed earlier this year remove barriers on foreign investment and enforce penalties on dominant operators.
Dan Thomas, a spokesman for BT in London, said the company didn’t have an immediate comment about the meeting outside regular business hours. A press official for the Federal Telecommunications Institute didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.

Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg

BT’s chief operations officer in the Americas, Jennifer Artley, as well as its regional... Read More

BT rose 1 percent to 399.70 pence at 9:13 a.m. in London trading, taking the advance to 5.4 percent this year.
America Movil SAB (AMXL), Carlos Slim’s dominant landline and wireless carrier, is seeking to sell part of its network in Mexico as a result of the laws. U.S. operator AT&T Inc. announced a $2.5 billion acquisition of mobile-phone company Grupo Iusacell SA earlier this month as President Enrique Pena Nieto encourages more competition and investment in Mexico.
Axtel SAB (AXTELCPO), Mexico’s second-biggest landline operator, has also considered potential partnerships with local and international companies to consolidate and “more effectively compete in Mexico,” Chief Financial Officer Felipe Canales said on a conference call with analysts in July.
For Related News and Information: BT’s Wireless Castoff Is Now Target of Its Ambitions: Real M&A BT in Talks to Buy EE or O2 in U.K. to Add Wireless Service AT&T Will Buy Mexican Mobile Carrier Iusacell for $2.5 Billion