Brasil Telecom
Brasil Telecom S.A. (BrT, ) was a major Brazilian telecommunications company headquartered in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia. The company was one of three landlines and eight mobile telephone companies – and only long-distance service provider – that emerged in Brazil following the break-up of Telebrás. Originally the company was called Tele Centro Sul, because its service covered the states in the central and southern parts of Brazil, namely Acre, Rondônia, Goiás, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, as well as the Distrito Federal. Since 9 January 2009, the company is a subsidiary of Oi. History The Brazilian investment bank Opportunity, which managed funds for investors including Citigroup and some Brazilian pension funds, in partnership with Telecom Italia, paid 2.07 billion reais in June 1998 to buy Tele Centro Sul from the Brazilian government as part of the privatization process of Telebrás. In 2001, the company purchased a small stake in the iBest Co. website and launched a portal and free internet access service; at the time, the Marcos Wettreich was the main shareholder in iBest. After some legal wrangling, Citigroup and the Brazilian pension funds took control of the company,