Bahamas government in telecoms talks

Thursday, November 13, 2003

NASSAU, Bahamas: The Bahamas government has terminated talks with the BahamaTel consortium, an investment group including two Wall Street firms that was planning to take over the country's telecoms provider.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the government is now in discussions with Blue Tel over a 49 per cent stake in the Bahamas Telecoms Company.

Government officials said the BahamaTel group - which included a unit of JP Morgan Chase and of Citigroup - offered a price that "was too low".

"We were not satisfied that we were arriving at a point which would have resulted in a successful outcome," said an official of the government's Tenders Commission of the BahamaTel offer.

The Blue Tel consortium consists of local investors, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, and the private equity arm of Bank One Corporation of Chicago.

Neither the government nor the bidders have publicly stated the prices made in the bids. However, officials said this year that the utility was worth about $350m, and that offers should reflect this. The government will keep a 51 per cent stake, which it will eventually sell.

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