The Telecom group does its shopping in Brazil. Tim Participacoes Sa, through its subsidiary Tim Celular Sa, has signed an agreement for the acquisition from Companhia Brasiliana de Energia of the Aes Atimus group, a company active in the telecommunications infrastructure sector in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. These are the most populated and richest areas of the South American country, where 27% of the national GDP is produced. The operation is worth 1,6 billion reais, equal to approximately 700 million euros and should close within 2011.
Aes Atimus owns a fiber optic network with an extension of 5.500 km which covers 21 municipalities. In 2010, the group collected 211 million reais with an Ebitda margin, i.e. the ratio between gross operating margin and turnover, of 63%. "The infrastructure covered by today's agreement - explains Telecom Italia in a note - will allow Tim Participacoes, among other things, to strengthen the development of the mobile network thanks to optical fiber connections (so-called backhauling) of the transmission stations, allowing extend and accelerate mobile broadband services, and benefit from synergies through the internalisation of the Aes access infrastructure, eliminating the need to rent connections from other operators”. The infrastructures of Aes Atimus are then integrated with those of Intelig, a company acquired in 2009.
