Mexico Gets 3 Bids for Phone Firm : Communications: Two of the groups include U.S. telephone companies. The winner of Telmex, the biggest in the privatization drive, will be selected later.

Three investor groups--two with U.S. telephone companies among the partners--submitted bids Thursday to buy controlling interest in Mexico’s telephone monopoly, by far the biggest company the Mexican government has sold off in a seven-year privatization drive.

Sale of the government’s 51% interest in Telefonos de Mexico--which has annual revenue of $3.2 billion and profit of nearly $1 billion--is expected to bring more money to federal coffers than the combined return from the 94 companies sold since President Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office nearly two years ago.

Those transactions raised $1.5 billion.

In the days leading up to the bidding, Telmex, as the company is known, has been one of the highest volume stocks on the U.S. over-the-counter market. Every day for the past two weeks, the company’s American Depository Receipts, the equivalent of shares, have been either the most active or second-most active issue on the NASDAQ.

Analysts attribute the activity to both the stock’s low per-share price, which encourages trading in large blocks, and interest in the sale, which has more than tripled the price over the past year. Telmex ADRs closed Thursday at $1.69, down 3 cents per share.

The bids submitted Thursday are for a 20.4% interest in Telmex. A complex financial structure, which shareholders approved earlier this year, will make the winners of this auction the company’s operating group, with controlling interest.

The winner also will receive a six-year concession guaranteeing that Telmex’s monopoly on all but cellular telephone service will continue.

One condition of the bidding was that the winner invest $12 billion over the next five years to improve the telephone system. From one-fourth to one-third of that money could be generated in that time from company revenue, according to one analyst who follows the company.

The amounts of the bids and the technical proposals, expected to be crucial to selection of a winner, will not be announced until Dec. 20. However, Thursday’s submissions--each accompanied by a $10-million, refundable bond--ended months of speculation about who the hopeful buyers are.

The groups submittings bids are:

* Acciones y Valores, a brokerage headed by Mexican entrepreneur Roberto Hernandez, in partnership with GTE and Telefonica de Espana, the Spanish telephone company that recently bought part of the Argentine telephone company when it was privatized.

* Grupo Carso, headed by Mexican financier Carlos Slim, in partnership with Southwestern Bell and France Telecom, the French government-owned telephone company.

* Grupo Gentor, an investor group from the northeastern Mexican industrial city of Monterrey, headed by Javier Garza Sepulveda. The group did not list any foreign partners.

One surprise was that no bid was submitted by a partnership of NYNEX, Bell Canada and Inverlat, a Mexican brokerage chaired by finance magnate Agustin Legorreta. Since the group announced its intention Sept. 27 to work together to develop a bid, it had been pegged as a strong contender, given the presence of both U.S and Canadian companies as Mexico faces free-trade talks with both countries.

The partners decided not to bid because “there were a number of outstanding issues we were not comfortable with,” said a NYNEX spokeswoman, who would not elaborate.

Among those that bid, analysts consider the GTE group the strongest contender.

Gentor has a distinct disadvantage unless it finds a foreign partner to provide technology, said one analyst, who spoke on the condition his name not be used.

Carso benefits from the financial strength of Slim--chairman of a large silver mining company--and the technical capability of his partners. But its bid too could run into trouble, said Douglas Campbell, an international stock analyst who follows Telmex.

First, Southwestern Bell will have to obtain relief in U.S. courts from restrictions on investments in long-distance businesses dating from the company’s creation when the Bell System was broken up, Campbell said.

Also, the Mexican government may not consider sale to a group including the French telephone monopoly exactly what it envisaged by privatization, he said. The Spanish phone company that is part of GTE’s group, by contrast, is privately owned.

Campbell predicted some changes in the bidding groups over the next month as the government seeks the best combination of technology and price.

After an operating group is selected, the government plans to sell the rest of its stock on international markets beginning next year.

TELMEX GOES PRIVATE

The Mexican government’s plan to sell a controlling interest in the nation’s telephone monopoly, Telefonos de Mexico, has heightened interest in Telmex’s American Depository Receipts, the securities representing Mexican shares in Telmex that trade over-the-counter in the United States. Chart shows the monthly closing bid price for Telmex ADRs since September, 1989, when Mexico announced it would let private owners take control of the phone company.