Panama’s National Public Services Authority (Autoridad Nacional de los Servicios Publicos, ASEP) has confirmed that it has received one bid for PCS licence (No.106), which was vacated by Digicel Panama last year. The bidder in question has been named as General Internacional Telecom Panama (Gitpan), a subsidiary of General International Telecom Limited. The licensing process started on 12 January and closed yesterday (16 March). The 20-year licence includes 2×15MHz in the 1900MHz band (1850MHz-1865MHz/1930MHz-1945MHz) and 2×10MHz in the 700MHz band (738MHz-748MHz/793MHz-803MHz).
When announcing the tender, ASEP emphasised that it was seeking a licensee with strong credentials, rather than an untried player and stipulated that the successful applicant must have at least five years of experience as a mobile licensee in another market and serve no fewer than 500,000 mobile subscriptions. While the company’s precise level of telecoms experience is unclear, in October 2021 General International Telecom Limited struck a deal with Telefonica Centroamerica Inversiones to acquire a 99.3% stake in Telefonica Moviles El Salvador for USD144 million. That deal closed in January 2022.
TeleGeography notes that General International Telecom Limited is a UK-based entity, incorporated in June 2021. According to its Companies House filings, the company’s director is a South Carolina-based lawyer named William Liston Pitman, while Cayman Islands-based Jaguar Fund was named as an initial shareholder.