Pharol’s shareholders agree to inject €80m in the company
Pharol's shareholders have deliberated on increasing the capital of the company by €80m. The company, headed by Luís Palha da Silva, intends to keep its position at OI in Brazil.
Pharol’s board has the approval from the shareholders to go forward with a capital injection of up to €80m, according to ECO’s sources. After an extraordinary general meeting, the shareholders approved the extension of the capital increase.
Pharol had previously deliberated (in September) on a capital increase of up to €55m. However, the board decided that the maximum value should be extended up to €80m, justifying the increase with “the unpredictability associated with the upcoming increase in Oi’s social capital”.
Such a move ultimately aims at increasing its participation in the Brasilian operator, Oi.
“Considering the current high volatility of Oi’s assets, there is an increasing need for Pharol to seek more capital, fixating the parameters in a level which accounts for possible fluctuations”, Pharol admitted, earlier this month, as the company revealed they would need to increase its capital up to a different maximum.
Pharol used to be the main shareholder of OI, the Brazilian operator. However, the Brazilian company converted its debt into shares, decreasing the position of the Portuguese company, which fell from 27.18% to less than 8%. Pharol was born from the ashes of Portuguese Telecom, and it now wants to maintain its initial position at Oi as the Brazilian company gets ready for the second phase of their recovery plan: new money injection.
In the meantime, Pharol has pursued legal action against the Brazilian company, claiming that Oi should compensate the Portuguese company with €2bn for having “severely damaged the interests of Pharol and its thousands of shareholders” following the sale of the Portuguese telecom company PT to Altice in 2015, an asset which belonged to Oi since the attempted fusion between Oi and PT failed.
