Mexico's government on Friday put the brakes on tycoon Carlos Slim's efforts to establish himself in his domestic television market, rejecting a bid by telecoms giant Telmex for a television concession.
Mexico's government on Friday put the brakes on tycoon Carlos Slim's efforts to establish himself in his domestic television market, rejecting a bid by telecoms giant Telmex for a television concession.
Telmex -- majority-owned by Slim, the world's richest man -- has been fighting a lengthy battle with regulators for the right to offer TV services. The billionaire is already the top provider of pay TV in Latin America.
The Mexican communications and transport ministry said in a statement that Telmex had failed to meet the necessary requirements to enter the TV market. However, it added the company could still try again in future.
The rejection of the bid is the latest in a string of setbacks for the 71-year-old Slim, whose companies are worth some $74 billion, according to Forbes.
Last month, Mexico's Federal Competition Commission fined Slim's mobile giant America Movil $1 billion after concluding that the firm had abused its dominant position.
This triggered a double-digit rout of the company's share price, though the stock recovered somewhat after America Movil launched a legal offensive to fight the fine.
Regulators and lawmakers have also stepped up their rhetoric in recent months against the market dominance of financial heavyweights like Slim, whose interests extend from telecoms to mining, high street retailers and the media.
The ministry said Telmex had not satisfied the demands of the Convergence Accord -- a five-year-old decree that foresaw telephone services being efficient and operating at "non-discriminatory rates" before the firm got the nod for TV.
Eduardo Garcia, head of web-based Mexican financial newspaper Sentido Comun, said the decision seemed wise.
"It leaves room for the authorities to still grant Telmex the much-desired TV licenses, but the company has yet to prove that it complies with fair play," he told Reuters.
"Too many companies still complain about Telmex practices, while it also challenges in court any decision to tame its market power," Garcia added.
Rivals of Telmex, which controls about 70% of Mexico's fixed telephone lines, have filed dozens of unsettled complaints against the company for its high fees and poor service when their customers tap its lines.
Telmex, the cornerstone of Slim's empire, boasted earlier this month that it had moved a step closer to offering pay TV with a ruling that forced regulators to decide on its bid.
Telmex lost some 10,000 customers a month in the first quarter, some of which were picked up by America Movil.
Slim had hoped to package his fixed-line phone offering with pay-TV services and Internet to try to stem the flow of customers to Televisa and other rivals that already offer these "triple play" packages.
Two of his biggest domestic rivals have forged an unlikely alliance to weaken his stranglehold on the mobile phone market in Mexico, Latin America's no 2 economy.
Media barons Emilio Azcarraga Jean and Ricardo Salinas, who control Televisa and TV Azteca, joined forces in April when Televisa agreed a $1.6 billion deal for 50% of Salinas's cell phone operator Iusacell.
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