Hicks Muse to Buy Stake in Argentina Media Firm

Leveraged buyout firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. said Wednesday it agreed to pay $700 million for about 30% of Argentina’s CEI Citicorp Holdings, accelerating its drive into Latin American media.

CEI Citicorp’s interests include shares in Argentina’s biggest telephone company and biggest cable television broadcaster.

Dallas-based Hicks Muse agreed to buy a 10.3% stake from Citibank, the retail banking unit of New York-based Citicorp, and about 19.5% from Los W, a group headed by Argentina’s Werthein family, CEI said in a filing with Argentina’s stock regulators. Citibank’s stake will fall to about 23% from 40%.

Hicks Muse also will buy $50 million of stock in a coming share sale by CEI, expected to add an additional 2% to its stake.

The investment is the biggest in Latin America by Hicks Muse, which has about $900 million dedicated to the region and a $500-million joint venture fund established in December.

“We view CEI as a unique investment opportunity and as a platform for further media and telecom investments in South America,” Thomas O. Hicks, chairman and chief executive of Hicks Muse, said in a statement.

The company’s joint venture Latin American fund was set up with Venezuela’s Cisneros Group, which is led by one of that nation’s most powerful industrial families. Each planned to commit as much as $250 million in cash and assets to the fund over the next three years.

Hicks, Muse has amassed a multibillion-dollar arsenal of media properties in the U.S., including the United Artists movie theater chain.