Dubai, UAE — Spain’s Securities Market Regulatory Authority granted its non-objection for Saudi telecom operator stc’s purchase of a 9.9 percent stake in Spain-based Telefonica, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported, according to Argaam.
The newspaper also said that Morgan Stanley, which advises on the deal from the buyer’s side, accumulated a little less than 3 percent of Telefonica’s capital during an unspecified period of time and bought the remaining percentage of about 7 percent recently, indicating that that was the day on which stc notified the authority of the process.
This is consistent with European and Spanish regulations that ban any investor from accessing a 3 percent stake in a listed company without notifying the regulator, Argaam said.
The media reports said that stc announced recently it acquired a 9.9 percent stake in Telefonica for SAR 8.5 billion (2.1 billion euros).