Nortel Inversora owns 54.75% of TEO.

The preferred A shares are owed approx US$310 million, though it is owed not in dollars but in pesos (approx 1 billion pesos) due to the law converting such debts into pesos. Interest is at Libor and the amount is adjusted by the Argentine official inflation adjustment. The A shares must be paid off first before any dividends are paid to common or B shares. So this is the leverage, it is like having 300 million in debt, though in my opinion the terms of this debt are very good. Officially though it is equity, not debt.

The preferred B shares are what NTL are. The preferred B shares receive nearly half the dividends once the A shares are paid off.

There are just less than 30M NTL shares. If you work out the math NTL should be worth more per share than TEO. That means NTL has always traded at a discount to fair value based on TEO, but even more so now.

As far as a buyout, it won't happen the way you say. Notice in the news there is a dispute over control of Telecom Argentina, with the government of Argentina giving TI a hard time because it is part owned by Telefonica, which owns the other Argentine phone co. What TI wants is the common shares of Nortel Inversora, that's how you take control of TEO. So neither TEO or NTL are controlling shareholders.

As far as I know the NTL shareholders will contiinue to be owed 49% of 54% of the profits of T.A. no matter who owns it.

Anyone else have an opinion on how this ownership dispute affects TEO as a company or NTL specifically?