History
Antônio Dias Leite bought some of these companies and founded Multicanal on December 12, 1991. One of his priorities was to get them up and running, with the intention of selling them later. The first purchase was of a small operator in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, with around 100 users; the purchase was valued at around US$200,000. At that time, he had assets in TV Alphaville, a company owned by Silvio Santos that operated in the interior of São Paulo, and 80% in the RPC cable TV company in Rio de Janeiro. Therefore, Antônio Leite avoided large centers where Canais Globo (Grupo Globo) and TVA (Grupo Abril) operated. In 1992 and 1993, the company bought seven more operators or operating licenses, of which 6 were in São Paulo and one in Goiás.
The company followed the same lines as the major pay TV companies in the USA, going against its competitors in the country by ceasing to produce and only working with signal distribution. By 1993, the company was already present in several strategic locations and was in talks with its two competitors. In a second negotiation, Globopar (owned by Organizações Globo) and the American company Ralph Partners II obtained 30% of the company. With the entry of the American company, these engineers convinced Brazilians to invest in fiber optic devices and coaxial cables, which were more modern at the time, subsequently obtaining a greater range of services. With this, NET São Paulo was founded as the first multi-operator company in the country.
NET was launched on 12 December 1991 by Brazil's Roberto Marinho family's as part of their Rede Globo empire. In March 2005, Embratel, a subsidiary of Mexico's Telmex, took a controlling stake in NET, paying 570 million reais.
In 1998, NET incorporated a merger with Multicanal, which was completed in the same year.[4] Between 2000 and 2002, it operated under the corporate name Globo Cabo. In 2000, it purchased Vicom, which owned and operated more than 3,000 satellite communication earth stations in Brazil.
The company's shareholders have included BNDESPar, Bradesco, RBS and Microsoft.
In June 2004, América Móvil and Embratel joined NET's shareholder structure, and the company GB Empreendimentos e Participações was founded, formed by Grupo Globo (Globopar, 51% of the shares) and the Mexican group Telmex (49% of the shares), given that the legislation determined that more than half of the shares should remain in the possession of a company with Brazilian capital.
In 2006, Embratel and NET launched a joint pay TV service, broadband Internet connection and fixed telephony (NET Fone/Triple Play).
The company announced in late 2006 that it would buy Vivax, then the nation's second-largest cable company. The transaction was approved in May 2007 and completed in June 2007. Rollout of the NET brand in Vivax areas was completed in December 2007.
On 10 August 2010, NET became the first cable operator in Brazil to offer all the Warner Bros. Discovery in Latin America channels: Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Kids, People+Arts, Discovery Travel & Living, Discovery Home & Health, Discovery Science, Discovery Civilization, Discovery Turbo, HD Theater and TLC.
On 28 January 2012, Anatel granted Embratel, a subsidiary of América Móvil, authorization to take control of the company, granting the company the right to purchase the remaining shares belonging to Grupo Globo.[5][6] At this time, Grupo Globo holds 33.56% of the common shares.[7]
On 5 March 2012, Embratel reported that it had paid R$6.439 million to Globopar for 5.5% of the voting capital of GB Empreendimentos e Participações, the direct controlling shareholder of the pay TV company NET. With the acquisition, Embratel now holds 54.5% of the voting capital and 100% of the preferred shares of GB. As a result of the acquisition, Embrapar and Embratel now hold, directly and indirectly through GB, 92.2% of the total capital of NET, Embratel reported.[8]
In order for Globosat to be certified as an independent programmer, its owner had to sell its shares in pay TV companies, including NET and Sky.[9] After this adjustment, Grupo Globo changed the company's shareholding system, meaning that Globosat was only classified as a national production company.[10][11]
