Millicom and Apollo end discussions

Latin American service provider Millicom has ended discussions about a potential sale of the company to Apollo Global Management.

The company originally confirmed it was in talks with Apollo in January.

Las November, French media entrepreneur Xavier Niel, owner of the Free platform in France via his Iliad Telecom group, which also owns operators in Poland and Italy, took a 7% stake in the Lat Am player through Atlas Investissement, owned by his investment vehicle NJJ Holding.

In January 2019 Millicom also held talks with Liberty Latin America, which made a conditional non-binding offer to buy 100% of the mobile and cable operator, which has networks across nine Latin American markets and in Chad and Tanzania in Africa, principally though the Tigo brand.

Liberty Latin

Luxembourg-headquartered and NASDAQ and Stockholm-listed Millicom had 40.6 million mobile customers at the end of the first quarter, of which 6.6 million were post-paid.

The operator had 4.8 million fixed-line customers relationships out of 13 million homes passed, mostly with HFC or fibre. It counted 8.7 million fixed RGUs, including 3.8 million broadband customers.

Overall revenue was Us$1.37 billion, down 2.8% for the quarter, while operating profit dropped 19% to US$190 million.