Two recently-formed Mexican companies with large stakes owned by AT&T Corp and GTE Corp announced plans to join forces as the battle to take on the dominant Telefonos de Mexico SA de CV heats up. Alestra is owned by Mexican industrial major Grupo Industrial Alfa and AT&T, and Unicom is a partnership between Mexican and Spanish firms and GTE Corp. Last December they both won concessions to enter Mexico’s long-distance telephone market when Telmex’s monopoly ends on January 1 1997. Alfa will take 25.6% of the new venture, AT&T 20%; of Unicom’s partners, financial group Bancomer and Valores Industriales, Visa, will own 25.4%, Telefonica de Espana SA will have 14.5%, and GTE 14.5%. Alestra, the name of the new company, will invest $1,000m over the next five years in construction of a digital transmission network.
