Telecom Argentina

What it is

Telecom Argentina provides mobile and fixed telephony, fixed broadband, and video services nationwide in Argentina, and also operates in Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and the United States. It now carries the Personal and Movistar mobile brands under one roof; before the 2025 merger, Personal held 33.8% of Argentina’s mobile market and Movistar held 24.4%.

The corporate name stays Telecom Argentina S.A., but in December 2025 the company unified all its consumer-facing services — mobile, broadband, cable, and its digital wallet Personal Pay — under the single brand “Personal.” It also runs Flow, the country’s main cable-TV and streaming platform.

Who owns it

Telecom Argentina is owned roughly 40% by CVH (Cablevisión Holding S.A., the vehicle of the Clarín media group’s shareholders), 40% by Fintech (the fund of businessman David Martínez), and the remaining ~20% trades freely on the stock exchange. Institutional investors hold about 40% of the float, according to EODHD data, and insiders report no direct share ownership on top of CVH’s block.

The two controlling blocs — Clarín-aligned CVH and Fintech — move in tandem through a shareholders’ agreement, giving them a combined roughly 80% grip on voting power and making the free float the only genuinely independent voice in the stock.

Who runs it

Roberto Nobile was proposed as CEO and has held the role since early 2020, confirmed by the company’s Wikipedia page and the SEC filing record. CFO Gabriel Blasi stepped down in late 2025, and Federico Pra, the Director of Finance, is serving as interim CFO while the company searches for a permanent replacement.

The board chair position is held through CVH, with Fintech and CVH each appointing directors in line with their shareholding; the board structure follows the 2017–2018 Cablevisión merger governance framework.

The money, in plain words

For every peso of sales the company keeps about 4 cents as profit — a net profit margin of 3.93%, thin by global telecom standards but a meaningful recovery after two consecutive years of net losses (ARS -738 billion in FY2023 and ARS -170 billion in FY2025 annual, per EODHD). The trailing twelve-month figure, which captures the most recent quarters, turns positive at ~US$239 million, suggesting the FY2025 annual loss was front-loaded.

For every peso shareholders have put in, the business earns about 5 cents back — a return on equity of 5.23%, modest, and a reflection of heavy capital spending rather than weak trading. At 25.7 times earnings (price-to-earnings ratio of 25.7×), investors are paying a premium that prices in growth from the Movistar integration; the dividend yield of 0.32% signals the company is reinvesting almost everything rather than returning cash to shareholders.

What it is doing now

On 24 February 2025, Telecom Argentina acquired virtually all of Telefónica Móviles Argentina — 99.999625% of its shares — for US$1,245 million, folding the Movistar brand into its own Personal business and ending Telefónica’s 35-year presence in the country. The acquisition was financed through a combination of cash and loans.

On 18 June 2026, Argentina’s Antitrust Tribunal conditionally approved the deal. As the price of approval, Telecom must transfer at least 6 million mobile customers — 4 million in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area and 2 million elsewhere — plus associated radio spectrum to an independent buyer.

The company has also announced a partnership between its Personal Pay digital wallet and Banco Macro to extend financial services to its customer base.

What to watch

• Customer divestiture execution. The deal reduces independent mobile operators from three to two; regulators have ordered the transfer of 6 million customers to preserve competition. Who buys that block, and at what price, will determine whether a credible third competitor emerges.
• CFO vacancy. Finance is being run on an interim basis by Federico Pra after Blasi’s departure; a permanent appointment will signal how the board plans to manage leverage from the US$1.25 billion acquisition.
• Inflation accounting distortions. Argentina’s triple-digit inflation of recent years (annual CPI ran at 271.5% at mid-2024, falling to 39.4% by mid-2025, per SEC filings) makes year-on-year revenue comparisons in pesos almost meaningless; watch US-dollar revenue and free cash flow instead.
• 5G and fibre rollout. Telecom has outlined plans to merge Movistar’s infrastructure with its own while accelerating 5G deployment and expanding fibre coverage. Capital intensity will stay high, which keeps the dividend yield low and the debt load worth monitoring.

This is news, not investment advice.