EasyCall still interested in Beeper 150

Acquisition talks between EasyCall Communications Philippines Inc. and Beeper 150 are ongoing despite announcements by Pilipino Telephone Corp. (Piltel) that it is not interested in selling the paging firm.

Modesto Cervantez, EasyCall president, said yesterday that they were surprised over claims by Piltel president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno that no negotiation is being conducted between the two parties.

According to him, they have authorized UniCapital, an investment bank, to deal with Piltel since last year and that the latter has not indicated plans to back out from the talks.

Although, nothing positive has come out of the discussion yet, Cervantez remains confident that Piltel would eventually have to let go of Beeper 150.

"Right now, Beeper 150 may be enjoying a healthy cash flow but while the paging department is doing well, it will still be affected by the situation in Piltel. Actually, it would be a losing proposition for Piltel," he pointed out.

Cervantez said it is natural for Nazareno to deny the negotiations since it would affect the morale of the employees.

He, however, stressed that EasyCall only wanted to acquire the subscriber base of Beeper 150 which is placed at 46,000 since it would be easier for the company to buyout an existing paging operator than sell the units one by one.

EasyCall has started to embark on a strategy of raising its pager base through acquisitions to effectively strengthen its position as the leading paging company in the country with an estimated 40-percent share of the market.

Negotiations with other paging firms, he said, will be continued in the next fiscal year. Earlier, EasyCall announced its intention to buy Infopage and Pocketbell aside from Beeper 150.

EasyCall has already acquired the 5,000 pager base and the paging infrastructure of Index 152 last year.

During Piltel's stockholders' meeting last week, Nazareno said that they do not have plans of selling Beeper 150 because of its healthy cash flow and that there has no formal offer yet from EasyCall to buy the paging firm.