Tricom announced that Motorola sold 26.5% of its shares in the Dominican telecommunications company to Telefónica de España. This move is part of a Motorola divestment of its participation in telecommunication companies in Mexico, Israel, Brazil and Honduras. The announcement was made by vice president of public relations Adriano Miguel Tejada who said the operation is still pending approval of the corresponding organizations in each country. He said the sale will not affect the normal operations of Tricom. Tricom principal shareholder is the Grupo Financiero Nacional of Santo Domingo that also owns Bancrédito bank, La Nacional insurance company, Rumbo newsweekly magazine among other companies. In 1993, Tricom became the first Dominican company to be publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Tricom has been expanding into Central America, starting with Panama this year. Its plans are to leverage its competitive experience and strategic asset base, primarily its state-of-the-art switching facilities and international fiber optic submarine cable systems, in order to provide wide-range telecommunications services to attractive markets within the Central American and Caribbean regions. Tricom offers an integrated digital wireless communication network based on iDEN® Motorola technology in Central America. Tricom has become the seventh wireless provider to adopt this technology in Latin America. Tricom recently announced it has acquired capacity on Global Crossing Ltd.’s Mid-Atlantic Crossing (MAC) fiber optic submarine cable system, connecting the eastern United States and the Caribbean. This is in line with the company strategy of expanding into selected Central American and Caribbean markets. The added capacity completes Tricom’s U.S. Eastern seaboard network and enables the company to accelerate its plans to establish a PoP (point-of-presence) in South Florida by the end of this year. It also is intended to improve connectivity to major the Caribbean and US cities. For more information on Tricom, see http://www.tricom.net
