The agreement to sell AT&T’s Mexican operation to a 50:50 joint venture (JV) between Grupo Televisa and Fintech Holdings for $2bn is far more than a change of ownership. If approved, the transaction would create an entity capable of delivering both fixed and mobile services over its own infrastructure, giving it a convergence advantage over its competitors.
While still not approved, the implications are palpable. America Movil could intensify its longstanding push for Telmex to obtain additional services, including pay-TV, arguing that asymmetric regulation needs updating in the context of fixed-mobile convergence and a major challenger with those capabilities. Megacable, whose MVNO runs on AT&T’s network, now faces a reality in which its wireless wholesaler is controlled by a direct competitor in fixed services. Other fixed broadband providers may accelerate their own MVNO plans, turning to alternative wholesalers such as Telcel or Altan. Furthermore, the Oxio–Newfoundland Capital Management consortium, which recently received regulatory approval to acquire Movistar Mexico (Telefonica), finds itself in a landscape that shifted materially between the signing and the closing of its own deal, with its wholesale partner now becoming a more integrated rival.
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Based on trailing 12-month financials up to Q2 2026, AT&T Mexico’s $2bn deal implies an EV/EBITDA multiple (a measure of how much a buyer pays relative to a company’s EBITDA) of 2.3×, below the 7.6× benchmark for emerging-market wireless companies compiled by NYU Professor Aswath Damodaran. The picture inverts on EV/EBIT, with AT&T Mexico’s 17.5× exceeding the 13.8× emerging-market reference. The transaction seems discounted at the EBITDA level but implies that the company will require capital investments to maintain and upgrade its network. Together, these metrics reflect the challenges of competing in a capital-intensive market dominated by America Movil.
The transaction structure tells its own story about risk management. Of the $2bn price, $1.2bn is financed through non-recourse secured debt collateralised by AT&T Mexico’s own assets and cash flows, with a $200m revolving credit facility on top. Televisa’s balance sheet stays insulated—a deliberate design given that several rating agencies downgraded the company’s credit rating between 2025 and 2026. According to Fitch Ratings, Televisa’s cash contribution was funded through convertible debentures issued in June 2026, and AT&T Mexico will not be consolidated within Televisa’s financials. For AT&T Mexico, this means profitability is paramount: The unit must service its debt, fund dividends to both JV partners, and finance network upgrades with limited capacity to take on additional leverage.
This is Televisa’s third serious attempt at owning mobile network infrastructure, following a failed bid for Nextel Mexico in 2010 and a short-lived 50% stake in Iusacell acquired in 2011 and resold in 2014. Televisa’s MVNO, Izzi Movil, launched in 2020 and has grown steadily, but owning AT&T Mexico’s network is a categorically different proposition. The mobile market Televisa is re-entering bears little resemblance to the one it left after the Iusacell partnership. The quadruple-play thesis that underpinned that venture, with pay-TV as a differentiating anchor, never quite delivered. Pay-TV is in structural decline across the Americas, and the competitive logic has shifted from bundling more services to delivering more capacity through fixed-mobile convergence, though in Mexico that shift remains sluggish.
Regulatory approval is expected but unlikely to come unconditionally. AT&T estimates closing by the first quarter of 2027, a timeline consistent with the Movistar Mexico precedent. Mexico’s antitrust authority will need to weigh Televisa’s “preponderant” (incumbent) status in broadcasting, and the upcoming biennial preponderance review creates a natural window for additional remedies. Probable conditions could include maintaining wholesale MVNO access to AT&T’s network or limiting the degree of content exclusivity available to Televisa.
Beyond regulatory hurdles, the operational challenge ahead is substantial. Integrating fixed and mobile services requires aligning separate billing systems, coordinating commercial teams that report to different entities, and managing an inherent tension: the JV needs AT&T Mexico to maximise its own revenue while Televisa’s strategic interest lies in migrating mobile customers toward fixed bundles under its Izzi brand. The enterprise segment adds another dimension, as a combined Televisa-AT&T Mexico could compete more aggressively in corporate and government contracts spanning SD-WAN, IoT, and managed security. Meanwhile, Televisa must continue expanding its fibre footprint to support its core fixed services; H1 2026 CapEx is already 56% above the same period a year earlier. A known unknown is the role of Starlink: Televisa could leverage its existing partnership to extend satellite connectivity beyond its fibre footprint while continuing to build out fixed infrastructure and could even explore direct-to-device (D2D) mobile connectivity to supplement AT&T Mexico’s network.
The deal redraws competitive lines across Mexican telecoms, but the harder question is whether the consortium can convert a structural convergence advantage into commercial execution while keeping the debt serviced and the regulators satisfied.
