On 31 December it became the local operating company for the assets of the Venezuelan Telephone and Electrical Appliances Company Limited, an English firm which had been operating in Venezuela for 40 years between Caracas and Puerto Cabello, San Juan de Los Morros, Ocumare del Tuy and Macuto, and had recently acquired the Maracaibo telephone company in 1929. The foreign company, renamed telephone Properties Ltd, still held 100% of the ordinary shares in the Nacional company, and maintained its investment; at the time of transfer it was in the process of automating its network of exchanges.