Oi Sells Undersea Cable System and Thousands of Towers to Raise Cash

Brazil’s Oi will sell its GlobeNet undersea cable division to BTG Pactual YS Empreendimentos e Participações S.A, an investor group, for R$1.745 billion (US$772 million).  The deal includes the 22,500 undersea cable system linking the United States, Bermuda, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil, as well as local subsidiaries located in those countries.

Oi also agreed to sell 2,113 telecommunications towers belonging to its subsidiary Telemar Norte Leste S.A. to SBA Torres Brasil Ltda. for R$686 million (US$305 million).

Oi said the sales will put it in a better financial position while ensuring continuity services at lower cost.

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• GlobeNet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Oi (formerly Brasil Telecom), recently completed construction on its new high capacity subsea cable system (Segment 5), which connects Bermuda to New Jersey.  The new subsea cable system has a total design capacity of 30 Tbps.  It is designed to support 150 wavelengths per fiber-pair at 100 Gbps per wavelength.  The Segment 5 system includes the use of TE SubCom Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE), which allows transmission of multiple high-quality, high-bandwidth optical signals over ultra-long distances.