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BellSouth sells Optus stake
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July 1, 1997: 1:53 p.m. ET
Cable & Wireless pays $735 million for 24.5 percent of Australian firm
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - BellSouth Corp. said Tuesday it will sell its 24.5 percent stake in Australia's Optus Communications to British telecommunications firm Cable & Wireless Plc. for $735 million.
BellSouth will receive about $1.50 per share for its 490 million shares. Cable & Wireless also will give BellSouth its 22.3 percent interest in Colombian cellular company Occidente y Caribe Celular S.A., also known as Occel.
BellSouth, based in Atlanta, said the sale will spike its third quarter earnings.
The addition of the BellSouth shares gives Cable & Wireless a total of 49 percent of Optus' shares.
Cable & Wireless said it also will issue 298.9 million options, each entitling C&W to purchase one newly issued Optus share. After exercising those options, C&W said, its Optus shareholding would be more than 50 percent.
Optus began operations in 1992 as only the second telecommunications operator in Australia and offers long distance and cellular phone services. With 1.9 million customers, it had fiscal year 1996 revenue (the most recent available) of $1.4 billion and before-tax profits of $44 million.
It also own Optus Vision, a cable television service with over 180,000 subscribers.
-- Randy Schultz
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